well, we’ve never had a lay off and we’ve been here since ’44 when you see how we run this place you’ll run screaming out the door when you find your 8 hour shift has ballooned to 14 or more the labor is repetitive with carpel tunnel galore we bare no responsibility when you slip on greasy floors our health benefits bought at a discount store you see our business plan treats you like a prisoner of war until you wonder what is wrong with being young and free and poor
the chains of dogma increase with each new day sophistication and bumbling in equal rhyme beliefs scramble when the truth gets in the way new discoveries possible at any time born alone, then crowded in the sway between minds that hunger in decline when all we need is honest work and play
an alter ego I’ll invent a handsome know it all agent to whim and parry the low event and explain the thought I really meant it was so here then there it went settled under the Sheik of Arabia’s tent in desert camp under the firmament
when young, I read Thoreau the transcendentalists were but gone by slightly over a century disobedience was in style we would all head toward the land and live in the wood soybeans simmering on the stove as we headed toward a dream the pull of the world a force so very strong as to last throughout the ages interrupted our free fall so when I would consult the mind of Walden through his writings there burned in me a sense of radicalism to head to the forest, naked with poetry I told myself I could not afford these steps recognized that Thoreau’s considerations were so true as to be dangerous I set the sage aside I am sure that sages expect that sort of behavior
soon after my 50th year in my personal limerick I found myself looking at a summer morn…..
twenty six shapes, empty spaces too, dots and tailed dots, squiggles, syntax, usage, certain rules, phonetics, with this simple toolbox we present the sum of human expression up to and including this one
with their great drooping wings the ospreys returned yesterday to scan the raging snowmelt for churned up meals to set up nest in order to begin the process of egg to chick to selfish fledgling to conspicuous adult it is tempting to apply human traits to the natural world [especially for a poet] but in this case we will work on an unnatural premise reaching the small point of contentment in the form of a fish hawk being putting aside our never ending need for understanding and stop measuring beauty and form
reality is re-constructed from scratch every 5 or 6 minutes or so how many times have you lost something oh, carkeys, that screwdriver that fell to the shadows the printed report that was just in that ******* pile just a minute ago those instances are only slight faux pa ses by the re-construction crews that toil in every medium to create authenticity
in darkness in dream collecting dead cats hung from trees from the branches that grow from the narrow hill spied by the lioness taking interest in my assortment of her cousins
all this stained my soul warnings of a beast on the loose had to be made a silent warning a guess at redemption the ripple of muscle under feline fur powerful stuff before the night my dream will be forgotten
art of any kind can only depict one thing and that is state of mind art is incapable of creating an external reality for reality is stubborn and allows nothing to approach it surrounded by a symphony of colored possibilities it stands alone in black and white
After leaving port in March disguised as the Norwegian freighter Rena Norge, the Leopard set sail its mission to disrupt Allied commerce. On the 17 March it was stopped in the North Sea by the cruiser HMS Achilles and ordered to proceed to the boarding vessel HMS Dundee for inspection Heavily outgunned Captain the raider's commander Hans von Laffert had no option other to proceed to meet the boarding vessel. Captain Selwyn Day of the Dundee dispatched a launch containing a boarding party with an officer and five men to investigate the mysterious ship. Hans von Laffert realizing he was about to be discovered detained the party and after about an hour opened fire on the Dundee with a salvo of two torpedoes. The steamer manoeuvred out of the way barely in time and the torpedoes missed Captain Day's ship by twenty feet. Day ordered his guncrews to open fire and a hail of shells struck the Leopard damaging a gun and setting fires. The Achilles hearing the sound of gunfire returned to the scene and opened fire on the raider as the Dundee withdrew. Shortly after the Achilles's arrival the Leopard sank with all 319 hands going down with the ship. Damage to the British vessels was light and the only casualties consisted of the six boarding party members who were trapped in the Leopard when it sank.
today the sun is a brilliant yellow smear against the bluest of blues and it seems at noon that the height of the sun is a bit higher over the horizon and the shadows look changed also
how to react to an uncomfortable remark: think yourself dressed in stars and stripes crepe red white and blue with top hat and white beard
why, you are Uncle Sam !
you have two bright sparklers in your hands and you high step parade through the confetti that floats in the air marching to the tune of a brass band that has suddenly appeared you apply a Robert Preston grin
why, you are the Music Man !
happy forever to strut with purpose in an endless carnival
a wall as metaphor fits the bill to these thoughts ***** nil a massive wall near six feet wide covered with sharp stucco side that ****** pierces the forehead skin as heads bang in a continuous whim for tell me what is a reality for when breath and bone are felt no more
the skies are banded with cloud grey mixed with less grey snow sits in the tree crotch and puffs into the air from the tips of long branches touched by a draft of wind underfoot corn flake ice overhead flies the jay the earth begins its nap the air biting cold