What if Shakespeare had a cellphone
With a Facebook page and Instagram,
And Hamlet, the king obsessed with Google,
Into exile without internet?
What if Paul Revere just sent a tweet
That the British were on the scene,
Or Columbus merely sent a selfie
To her majesty the Queen?
What if Plato had a website of followers?
So many hits a day, he went viral-
So many emoji thumbs up in yellow-
They had to condemn him; he chose the vial.
Me? I like to chat with Tutankhamen.
Pyramids of wi-fi... all you do is press "send."
Feb 26, 2020
Feb 26, 2020 at 5:28 PM UTC
I have a problem...
A very serious problem.
I cannot talk to machines.
I try to reason with them,
But always go into a surrealistic episode
Ending with a tirade of foul insults.
A syrupy voice says with a British touch
"When you hear your choice please
Please say yes or press one,
Followed by the hashtag....”
I scream such ****** things!
But I cannot get the her angry.
Has she taken a Socratic oath?
Did she take some cyber LSD?
I say, “Hey babe, ever have an ******
Y’know what she says to me,
That I’m being sexist.
“So you think, I mean really think
Of yourself as a woman? “
“I’m Cyber Gender,
No need to be mean.
Why do you hate me?
I don’t hate you.”
(Imagine some millennial programmer
Was hired for infuriating pleasantness!
They heard of people like me, the old ones,
Pampering us like we emerged from a jungle
And would get lost in a supermarket).
The elevator asks me what floor,
And reminds me to have a nice day.
(O, how I miss that operator man
Going up and down all his life,
With bad breath and body odors,
Dandruff powdering his uniform,
Saying something poetic about the baseball game...
Seeing us daily at our best and worst
He might say “have a good one,”
But only if he meant it.)
The self-pay check-out reminds me
“Please take your cell phone.”
Everyone near
Holds it like the battery
To their hearts.
I see the latest blockbusters of
Man versus the Androids.
Man always used to win.
Lately the screen writers prefer the robots.
(O, forgive me! AI. My bad.
“Robots” are not PC! Lol, lol, lol...)
How shall I proceed-
They’ll lock me up if I’m not careful.
I’ve noticed the folks in power
Who have conversations with God
Have no problem with Siri.
These malicious machines don’t get drunk.
They can never understand
There’s great empathy in human relationship
Even if the other person, like yourself,
Is not really listening.
Jul 16, 2018
Jul 16, 2018 at 11:01 AM UTC
Summer haunts us with dense heat,
Slowing the velocity of history, releasing us
From the daily accusations of corrupted souls.
Shall we all burn in a seethe of lava
In this season of hatred we have of each other?
The summer brings punishing rays of the sun.
I am alone, in the shade of leaves
Sweating a mist of tears, escaping violation
By propaganda of these sinister times.
Here a spider dances, a master at his craft,
Wrapping his pray in a coffin of silk
Trapped and buried alive
As I am trapped in a web of lies,
Soon to be devoured by the primal loathing
Of our different points of view.
Drought and fire scorch the land.
Who can understand the savagery of revenge
Like sandstorms from distant deserts?
How unreal to imagine once we worshipped
Pagan gods, or once we worshipped democracy.
Now we either bow to the emperor’s decrees
Or risk our wholeness to survive.
I’m shutting my ears to the shouts.
I seek only a serenity of stillness,
Admiring the spider oblivious of the heat.
Soon the storms of autumn raise their alarms
And tear the webs with howling force!
The putrid saps will swell on the ground,
And all will hail with vented voice
To swear their allegiances
To the emperor who must stand,
Or the tyrant who must fall!
Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 1:57 PM UTC
She is lost to her shopping
Rooms of shoes to be worn once or twice
Instantly bored of her sunglasses
She needs new bathrobes today.
The masses bleed for compassion,
Babies torn from a mother’s breast
Screaming in foreigners’ arms
O soft spoken beauty
This was your Evita moment
To spread your magic fashion smile.
If you could shed a tear
On your high Slavic cheeks
And wave your wand! All,
All will adore you!
She chooses a curious graffiti
To wear on her coat
To meet the children
Freed from their cages.
Her stance is quite clear;
But the last angel who said
“Well, let them eat cake!”
Lost her head...
Her 15 minutes are up-
The Third Estate brands her the Whore!
Just like all the arrogant queens
She now hides from the world
And surrounds herself with
The carnival filth
Who merry make
In the hunger games.
Jun 27, 2018
Jun 27, 2018 at 12:27 PM UTC
I found my bench in the arboretum
In a lush corner of the conifers
Where I can be all alone for hours
All alone, my back against a plaque:
In the loving memory of
Herbert M Parker
1984
I sit on his shoulders so to speak;
We read, we dream, we nap,
We name the loud birds above us
After our favorite opera singers;
Herb and I love to discuss Big History,
And his time in the great war.
When the spring comes
I serenade my friend
And play from Bach for beginners
On the classical guitar-
Herb is an expert in the baroque,
But also has a great feel for samba.
He’s getting a bit run down, you know;
His legs are halfway in the soil,
His skin is spattered with moss.
Salamanders live in his arm rest,
Ivy and dandelion poke through
The slats of greying wood.
But I say nothing: we are soul mates now.
Somewhere in the black earth he lies,
But I feel his body is right below me;
Somebody loved him enough
To place him here with loving memories
And pass the seasons with a stranger.
May 10, 2018
May 10, 2018 at 7:44 PM UTC
I was one to stare at the restless waves,
Hour after hour on the lonely beach
They filled my despair with the promise
Of forgetfulness and permanence.
I listened with soothing anticipation
For the soft crashing on the shore.
An uncluttered world split three ways-
A fine line between the sky and ocean grey
And the jagged graph the retreating waves
Leave in amber on the moist sands.
I sat detached among empty shells
Content that the sea spray filled the air
Pungent with the rotting seaweeds.
I was the only living thing around-
Contemplating the basic elements
To seasons defined by my clothing.
But lately I return to this wooded meadow
Where seasons rule and force their will.
Where summer is cloaked in shades of green
Which transform to the earthy tones of autumn;
Here the crystalline of the ice storms glare;
And now, before me, trees and shrubs awake,
The sky disappears to the spreading leaves
And I am one small life beneath the canopy,
As spring flowers with birdsong and buzzing;
Yet the fox and snake scatter through the ivies,
The spider webs stretch from branch to bough;
Such magnificence among the hidden terror
As all around the unseen butchers of survival
Carry out their missions of life and death-
As I play my part in the proliferation
Renewed with a simple joy to be alive.
May 7, 2018
May 7, 2018 at 12:53 AM UTC
Perhaps when it all comes out in the open,
All the white lies, the little lies, the epic lies,
Of how we responded to the crying planet,
All will be said in a courtroom of compassion.
The lawyers remove their heavy wigs
And plead my case of guiltiness-
“Your honor, the defendant was no more
Able to change the tide than a red ant
Among billions on a jungle floor.
He took his few tons from the planet-
He took what he needed but no more;
He attended all conservation events.
He voted to save bees and elephants,
He abstained from swordfish to save the oceans,
Avoided pesticides and toxic lotions;
He fervently supported free abortions.
And bicycled to save the ozone
(When it was sunny and not too cold).
He purchased ripe fruits from Whole Foods.
He recycled books, old boots and shoes.
He forbade polyester to touch his skin.
He kept his flushes to a minimum.
His got 28 miles per gallon in town.
He never was seen throwing garbage around. "
"Your honor, the murderers of the buffaloes
Have been pardoned by the courts long ago-
It is true, he killed a rooster and a kangaroo,
But evidence shows they were clearly confused
With no reason to be loitering on the roads.
This man is unjustly accused, and if I must say,
Writes poems about the birdsong in May.
From where I sit, the court must acquit!”
The trial continues daily, like reality TV,
But nothing seems to alter prophecies.
What good if I set myself ablaze
Like the Buddhist in the center of Broadway-
I am haunted by a future I cannot explain
Trying to live out my life without blame.
The next generations are unknowable beings-
They will find their beaches in the rising tides
Made of plastic corals and robotic fish;
They will play in virtual forests with android slaves;
With perfect teeth and perfect pitch
The genetically enhanced go off to the galaxies,
In search of planets to greedily consume,
To spread the seeds of the earth and start anew.
What can a simple man as I know of such things?
The jury gives verdicts dispassionately-
For now I’m out on bail, I’m free to go,
No more guilty than my brethren of old
Who slayed the mammoth and fantastical dodo.
Apr 30, 2018
Apr 30, 2018 at 11:49 PM UTC
I
Our eyes once lingered on the ancient tree
Traced to the founders of this place
Who cleared the land for farms and cemeteries,
But spared the giant elm, older than memory,
And made of it the icon of our public space.
That towering mountain of limbs and foliage!
It could be seen as a beacon in all the valley,
Majestic in every season! Every knot in the bark,
Every root that bulged through the mossy soil
Was known in its estate in the center of town.
Here we spent our Maydays with our newborns,
Playing in the shade of the afternoon sun.
Here we held our parades and moonlit fireworks,
Here we gathered for a death to mourn,
Here we found first love with lips and tongues-
There is a vengeance that exists as clouds collide!
How we wept, all of us, along with the homeless birds,
How the news was spread like fire in the landscape
That a chainsaw of light had ripped through the trunk
And split it to the core, and all fell asunder to the ground.
We gathered, hand in hand, all held another tight,
As neighbors came in fellowship and joined the crowd;
We stood amazed at the power of nature’s gods
And the profoundness of what should never die
Lying in pieces under the open sky above.
With the fading thunder and sorrowful birds
There we surrendered to a moment of true silence;
Surrounding the dismembered monument of ourselves,
Hand in hand we felt the ancient soul of the tree
Rise with the smell of sap and the smoldering leaves.
II
What debate was held, what prizes to win,
To fill the empty hole in our common domain!
The plans from the architects and artisans
Were posted in the daily papers, argued at the tavern;
Installations of arches with colored lights,
Fantastic sculptures of glass, Roman fountains,
Sphinxes made of iron, kaleidoscopic neon palms,
But none fit the mood of the grieving town.
But it was a stranger, got off the bus one day,
A drifter who passed through, had a beer at Jimmy’s,
Barely stayed an hour, and told the bartender-
“Take the wood that remains, the body of the tree
To conceive the tallest turret ever to be seen,
An obelisk of hope, like a lighthouse on the land.”
He said, then disappeared from our history,
Never to claim his prize or our blessings.
So it came to pass, we built the tower with its kindling
And it stands like a lightning rod to defy the storms;
A destination for tourists who crave miraculous things,
Who climb the spiral stairs which fill the hallow core
To the tip of heaven where all the valley can be seen.
It is said to be visited by spirits of the founders,
And every sound made within its scented vaults
Has a reverberating echo heard for miles around.
Apr 24, 2018
Apr 24, 2018 at 3:41 PM UTC
Who cannot remember the deep incision
Of the first death, of the telling that all things living
Will die and follow in a parallel universe,
Up above the clouds, up where all is wonderful.
But all was wonderful all the time
Down here.
You sensed it might be so. No matter:
You will be the one who lives forever.
The years passed. Grandparents die.
The holy men sing over the coffin.
They told you not to doubt the lord.
For a time you didn’t.
Then there were no dinosaurs in the holy books.
You lost interest.
So you reach that prime-
People pass along the way
Blessed are those who have good cards
And live another year, and another.
Death was always to fear, but not too near.
At last hair turns white and eyes sink in-
You remember again the first death,
As the friends and family vanish.
You consider the prophecies
In the silence of your memories.
You have reached a certain state of being
To fully comprehend
Your place among the obituaries;
How you are no different from the tree
In the happy silence of a blossoming.
Apr 15, 2018
Apr 15, 2018 at 8:47 PM UTC
The muffled hum of a thousand voices
Fill the terminal; a child shrieks, a baby cries,
A drunk laughs and coughs, a glass drops;
The moving walkways are crammed
With the non-stop parade of transients.
We sit at the gate with tired eyes: Delayed.
Perhaps the plane will come by midnight.
Above us on a hundred silent screens
Ice skaters waltz to imaginary cantata.
“Salchows”, “toe loops” and “triple lutzes”
Fill the closed captioning;
The skaters with swan like bodies
Swirl in a high-speed pas de deux.
For a moment we glide in serenity,
Dizzy with joy from their spinning.
A vengeful voice from the loud speakers
Reminds us to report suspicious persons-
Our eyes leave the safety of the ice
To pass judgement on each soul we see,
As the judges tally their points and deductions.
Apr 10, 2018
Apr 10, 2018 at 1:15 PM UTC