When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

In my real life,
not a poet,
just an astronomer,
an observer of
universes, bodies,
places, faces,
visited, discovered,
named and oft,
best forgot.

I observe:

Some never find true love.
Some never fly first class.
Some of us
never see the
South of France.

Some of us wear
hand-me-down pants,
white lined creases when “let down,”
mocked, we never forgive ourselves
the shame of it.

Some never experience
reckless abandon.

Yet, some of us are
recklessly abandoned,
and never forget,
and never forgive.

Some of us lose
children, husbands,
avanti nel tempo,
before their time,
and
the anger is
forever, palpable,
costly.

Some of us
were raised by
someone else's parents,
and never rest easy,
the abandoned taste
always nearby,
a cruel living, breathing
teasing wasting

Some we can pass over
with ease,
as new tissue grows,
those cuts marked -
emotionally healed.

But the ones that scar,
the ones that visible scar
permanent reddened,
are the
holocaust deniers
that there is a real
promised land of
peace of mind.

Peace of mind -
not even for a second,
foretold but
unrealized,
a biblical myth,
a promised land,
a capitalist paradisal hoax.

Some never feel
public victory,
adulation, adoration,
always wearing the T-shirt labeled
Property of Someone Else.

Most of us remain
unpublished, undiscovered,
unremarked, blanketed,
cloaked in bills to pay;

Living a triumvirate of
heart ache, loneliness, worry,
our normal table fare
consists
of hand to hand
into the mouth
combat MRE's,
we engage,
to survive,
just stay alive.

We are not digitalized,
nonetheless,
we are
but digits,
our faces hidden, and
in no one's heart book
are we recorded,
friended,
yet our viewing habits,
purchases, secret sites
are enumerated, captured.

Some of us live
exclusively
in the real life,
never to escape to the
province of Wifi,
in the landscape
of the electronic mind,
an option for which
we are
untrained.

Perhaps sanctity of separation,
safety of text, email,
avec the ******* intrusion
of tweets are
the real life today,
games are always won,
and what we don't enjoy,
we just delete away

But In My Real Life
getting up is trying,
IMRL,
the trying is trying,
IMRL,
delete buttons don't exist      
in the keyboard
of our brains,
IMRL,
all we have is a
measly twenty six aleph bets
to find new ways to say
that living is striving and
what we feel is
oh so real,
not digital

IMRL,
when I laugh out loud,
the neighbors
beat the walls,
complainants,
registering their feelings
in my face,
in my book,
so to speak.

IMRL,
I got a friend,
maybe two,
all I need,
voices to help soften
the 400 blows of RL.

Their synthesized silence
of their breathing
on the phone
is precious unto me.

IRL,
limp from Friday
night to
Friday
night,
a bottle of Medoc
my weekend reward,
my bedrock cushion
in order to sleep.

After all these years,
gains and losses,
conversations with God,
I look up,
see the risk,
the slightest breeze
is a
hurricane wind.

The shaft,
of the
the sword
hanging above me
the hilt,
swaying in living color,
is no legend.

But what I have is
the ability
and maybe
the responsibility
to let anyone know
that
in my real life
anyone who touches me
with fine and good intent,
a momentary glancing blow
or a gunshot to the ventricle,
is part and parcel of
my real life.

This makes you real too,
savior, and hereby notified,
that you are not
just an observer, but
a poet of me,
an astronomer of my heart,
and namer of
a secret universe
inside of me.


Sept. 1, 2010

_____________________________
US Army jargon: meals ready to eat

851

When the Astronomer stops seeking
For his Pleiad’s Face—
When the lone British Lady
Forsakes the Arctic Race

When to his Covenant Needle
The Sailor doubting turns—
It will be amply early
To ask what treason means.

He lies flat on the rooftop
looking at the stars.

Useless worlds birthing and dying
he muses
the colossal magnificence of waste

if atrophy is the verdict
why create a complex web of universe
just because someone from an island
would stare at them
in awe of the beauty
seeking a key to the riddle
himself a grain of dust
lost in reading the firmament
and not grasping
of what significance
he is
within his shrinking space and time
in an expanding universe.

“Though my soul may set in darkness,
it will rise in perfect light.
I have loved the stars too fondly
to be fearful of the night.”
I don the belt of old Orion
and sit atop the great winged Pegasus.
I steal riches from cunning Copernicus
and sing ballads to the lonely new moon.
Look there - my bride! Oh fair Andromeda;
She bears our band fashioned from Saturn’s rings.
Her dress woven from strands of silk stardust,
we read our vows to the watching planets
and kiss under the sun’s jealous blaze.
Starstruck, we ride, comets trailing in our wake.

We know not the times or the gifts that are ours specifically and unequally you see someone at a
Distance walking through a pastoral scene away and down a hill at first by voice recognition you
Know who he is this grandfatherly figure brings a flood of feelings and moods to brush your soul
With the telling of wonder of intimate days and moments you have shared so often you smile as
He naps quietly and then a night comes where for one reason or another you get involved and the
Whole night is used for this activity the next day being Saturday you relax and in the late afternoon
You at first just set for what you think is a moment but the previous night delightfully and pleasantly
Catches up with you sleep affords you this non cumbersome trip of ease and you awaken and it is dark
At first groggy disoriented just like in a dream this logical but off answer is provided then you finally
Figure out what is going on what surprise and pleasure to know you have been ambushed by a slight
Tiredness that robed you in sweet bliss then trimmed it in solace you stir yourself and do minor things
Until it’s the bed time hour but instead of the normal lights out its turn away from the computer shut off
The television **** all the lights but one and then just purposely luxuriate in the soft amber glow it
Provides set the rudder to take you to sweet wonder as you drift to unspoken destinations these are
Truly simple joys where the need to be careful comes in we know even creation and all its splendors are
Fragile a great rush of water with four feet of foam froth and power charges down it has a twin that is
Separated by this mass of rock that rises upwards of fifty feet the water falls over it in a different way
These strings of water that cover the face from one side to the other and they are accompanied with the
Sweetest mist so you have this forked water show on both sides of powerful water all this glory of white
Power rushing then falling and then the center piece contrasted to this sense such power and mass and
The water is shear as it tenderly descends the mist is truly natures kiss the sound is the embrace the
Engulfing privilege we possess and own as humans but this could be harmed and ruined in so many sad
Ways thats why we are extraordinarily careful we want to preserve it for all times as human beings my
Friends we also can by indifference and lack of understating can harm friends that in their own right
Are spiritual streams that come from great spiritual head waters that were pristine and then one greater
Than all of us caused such harm and destruction in the purist place a garden I wrote and posted Fertile
Ground the great mind of Lincoln said in his day and he meant it for all of our history a nation as great as
Ours can and must be sustained yes our armies and navy are a part but in his speech He says if
“Destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher as a nation of freemen we must
Must live through all time or die by suicide what constitutes the bulwark of our liberty and
Independence it is not our frowning battlements our bristling sea coasts the guns of our war steamers
Or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army these are not our reliance against the resumption of
Tyranny in our fair land all of them may be turned against our liberties without making us stronger
Or weaker for the struggle our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms our
Defense is in the preservation of the spirit that prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands
Everywhere destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around you own doors
Familiarize yourselves with the chains of ******* and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them
Accustomed to trample on the right of those around you you become the fit subjects of the first cunning
Tyrant who rises” sound words of wisdom that benefit all men we can’t release our responsibility and
Expect a continuance of our freedom this is careful part of this piece Thomas Jefferson had this to say “I
Tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and his justice cannot sleep foe ever” what more
Prized possessions do you own than family and friends but if we deny and ignore our duty to be men
And women of righteousness how can we complain when civil authority in all manners deteriorates it
Can stand on no higher moral ground than we the people ourselves maintain we are the streaming
Waters of good or bad that flows through relationships ungodliness is a reproach to any nation by their
Fruits they will be known like it or not eat sins treats fine but know this the soul that sins it shall surely
Die it is a law an all living and loving father died to make sure no one could be a tyrant over you only
Yourselves hold that power every devil in hell can assault you but never can he claim victory until he
Sees the white flag of righteousness flying and it is saying I surrender my life of freedom bought by the
Pure sacrificial lamb God’s own son you could practically tell he was human they whipped him with a cat
Of nine tales with metal and bone he struggled down the Via Dolorosa each step declared your freedom
The song says He could have called ten thousand angels and it wasn’t nails that held your Savior to that
Cruel cross he had the ability to see everyone of us he knew how bitter and hard life would be if you
Walk it without him He said my burden is light and my yoke is easy it might sound obscure today but it is
Just as real walk beyond his love in disobedience and you will be punished by the god of this world and
Then he will take you to his fiery home as his subject I wrote before you are his greatest trophy he has
You on display in his lair because you are the greatest treasure God has not golden streets
You fist loved me and my brothers and sisters the tears that I cry in private it says this is doing the work
Of the savior increase my tears and sorrow because too many of them are hurting and know not your
Comfort lost in a savage world not any longer their own a usurper took them captive love replaced by
Cruelty is their lot if they could only see your painful longing as you look for them to come home every
Day they would truly break ties to this fallen world and fly to your presence they believe the lie that they
Have it figured out what sadness they are left with and they never have tasted your sweet spirit they
Mistake the boundless love they feel as if it were your spirit of intimacy outward love doesn’t reach
Inner depths satisfying to the point one person who cried stop no more I will die his love is truly deeper
Than the sea even the universe and Carl Sagan a man of science he was an American astronomer
Astrophysicist cosmologist author science popularizer science communicator sounds impressive but the
Reality he had an assistant and she had to be brilliant to a degree to be working with him but she was
More she was a born again Christian many were the years she loved and sought to help him not to just
Love the Cosmos but love the one who made them her persistence was to no avail you can make a god
Of many things even science how tragic he can be a warning guard your heart and you will preserve your
Soul

Going to include Fertile Ground that includes Streaks of Jefferson and Most Hated Twins I put on there
Lincoln said we should read such things

This important if you haven’t read it

Fertile Ground
O thou great Jefferson in whom dwelled the fidelity of a nation of free men.
Thy secretes can be viewed as we watch you live and breathe the life of a grand Virginia planter
When one is a student of nature and observes its subtle lessons becomes its master and ally. The next
Step of going to lead men is reasonable when taken into count the natural gifts that were refined in
Quiet fields and hills in lengthy times of treasured solitude that is not to say there won’t be difficulties
But to a merchandiser of lofty thoughts this is of little consequence. There are issues that must be
Divined through the protracted business of hard arduous study. Man’s soul drifts in and out of the valley
And hills taking unconsciously truths that exist they are everywhere but can be buried in life’s clamor.
To purposely walk across a field with your with your senses open will usher you into a place quiet
Unsettling if you are one who is uneasy in your own thoughts because the vistas will allow your mind to
Extend it to the far reaches ordinary thoughts will jump over conventional restraints and give you
Profound insights Jefferson graduated from this school of higher learning for this very important time
This man of stature arose he flung freedom’s door wide open walked through set down at his desk and
Masterfully penned immortal words, to this day time hasn’t diminished any of their importance or there
Revered excellence this document would go unparalleled in type and execution, in forming the basis for
Human conduct it would forever alter the landscape that that had existed before its grand arrival.
The stinginess of former centuries were at long last over the mind had finally
Liberated the body the willingness to do for one’s self had taken the lead there was no
Turning back, these actions would recommend them as a people. Their credentials intact now they were
Ready for the world stage a new birth of nobility walked into the human condition and it wasn’t
In the least bit hesitant to speak thoughts that had long been silenced.
The trouble today stems from the lack of understanding we have about the truth,
Of what oppression would be unleashed if our form of government would be allowed to be dissolved we
Love the dream but deplore the reality. That this system will only work when we are involved. It has a
Built in detection device, you can’t use its rewards without paying it back with service.
The results will be contagious you will be left with a weak sickly government.
The remedy simple everyone has to be its central guardian.
This does not mean that it is weak this was the way it was created it is as strong as you
Are willing to have it know this it will always be dependent on human involvement.
We might not like it but we are making a choice freedom will be loosed or bound by our decision.
The product that we deal with is very supple and ever changeable it becomes whatever form you pour it
Into this is in accordance with its nature it also is a gauge of those that handle its virtues and shows if
You have had reverence or contempt. You will be left with honor or disgrace did you carry forth the gift
Or allow it to waver the children of the next generation are watching.
Streaks of Jefferson
In freedom’s blessed glorified sky through streaks of immortal gold his visage we behold
He looks upon the fields of liberty that he and the founding fathers sowed he sees the
Richness America has become he also beheld her struggles catastrophic wars abroad
And the most painful the one that divided the nation marred it with southern and northern
Blood saw the affable the sad giant Lincoln take the reins of discontent hold them by
Shear will and with uncommon sagacity guided it back in line to fulfill its destiny as the
Powerful fount that would always pour forth waters of freedom for all of earths peoples
Total unconditional acceptance of liberty and all the fruit it bears to establish a
Government like no other this golden grain has waved under bluest skies and brightest
Sun light its rich harvest has gone to darkest prison cells Mandela was sustained by it
For twenty nine years and by its moral purity it fed the lives of those that over threw
Apartied and Mandela finally freed by principals it avows rose from prison clothes
To wear the mantle of president of his country and the honor of the man instilled
Quality that transcended political office Jefferson not to be disrespectful to his progeny
Whispers today’s politicians could do well to look on this African model of good
Stewardship of public trust with that Jefferson faded back into the mist pray that’s
Not the fate of this country
Most hated twins
Who are these two desperate characters revered but feared by all
To make their acutance few will volunteer those who know them well
All can tell by the drawn face and the tears that swell the pool where wisdom has her rule
Achievers welcome them as honored guest they withstood the test now they the richest blest
At mornings first blade of light they strike with all their might they the quickest to fight
Timorous to afraid how many have dwelt by waters undying well only to die unfulfilled
But others tried and they fell the well is to deep its where darkest shadows creep
We will be lost in these new surroundings the familiar there will be water there too
Yes stagnant unmoved guarded for naught its benefit was for the traveler going places
For you it will be your grave marker he talked and talked but venture on never
He said he was the clever one as his countenance slowly turned to stone killed by apathy
Green pastures call to find them in yourself health you will install
Few are they that were meant and born to reside in the same place you must go
If you stay rebuild the common and ordinary your monument then they will admire
Who stood to long and with all intention he gave it only words action was the wonder that was missing
Treading a narrow path in the end if you buried or squandered your talent divine wrath you will face
Cast your seed far and wide how can you not see the need sorrow has them tied
Push back the encircling darkness with the light in your heart that God did endow
Go and answer the door your guides are here I want you to meet two friends Pain and Adversity
Two finer companions you will never know Washington and his men befriended them at Valley Forge Concord, York town. Lincoln met them first at Bull Run Antietam I think he gave a little speech at Gettysburg. One birthed a nation the other saved a divided one.

Your eyes shine intensely
So intense
The midday sun seems so dark
They possess
This intense luminescence
They tease me like a planet
That longs to be explored
I would telescope them
As an astronomer admires the night sky
Peering into them
Looking to traverse through your mind
Get lost within
Reveling in the beauty that is such
Stumble across the kind magnificence
That is your gentle soul

.oh ****! now i remember, now i remember that other school of English thought... pragmatism! everything is so rational these days, no wonder that so many mental illness diagnoses exist... apparently every deviance of, "success" is, "magically" worthy of psychiatric scrutiny... but then you get psychopaths in the upper eschallance of society... and they're immune to psychiatric scrutiny... so much for pragmatism... whatever that means these days... what?! e-scha-llan-ce... usher-lance?! oh right, ****, i was going for an adjective... echelon... my adjective? feeling up to the level / rank within an organization, and subsequently, perfecting stated rank with robust, pompousness and erudition, matching up to a pedantic exercise within the confines of either, grammar, or, diction; my bad. see... i don't get it... i could somehow couple up the ancient Greek concept of the Stoic school, and the Epicurean school (of thought)... it became crystal clear... but... but when it comes to the English school of thought? i can't make the logical-leap of a worded multiplication concerning the schools of: egalitarianism, and... pragmatism... maybe i'm just *******... but i... i sometimes can't come at a worded equals sign, or at least: a mutually inclusive / mutually exclusive sharing processor of looking at both attempts to revise 1 + 1 = 2... then again, i'm not bothered... English liberalism doesn't bother me... the English were never libertarian in letting go... who are the English? they have their equivalence among the Prussians... but, yes... i was looking for this noun, this last remaining school of thought from the Anglophone world... i was thinking... what goes well with the cognitive spaghetti that exfoliates egalitarianism? ****... what else? pragmatism! so help me god, i can't concede making this dualism of ideas, perhaps contradictory, perhaps not, as i did with classical thinking... stoicism and Epicurean school i can justify... but the English, somehow complimenting within the realm of pragmatism, and egalitarianism?! good luck, i can't do it.

currently i only identify two schools
of thought in English...
i might change my opinion
in the future...

how, just how petrified people
are of exploring dialectics,
the fear stemming out
from... having opinions that
do not deserve questioning,
such blatant solipsism...

but i do identify two schools
of thought from the English
speaking world...
o.k. three... ****...
four...

egalitarianism...
egalitarian idealism...
unitarism...
utopian-ism...        

****... four, five...
how many in total?

scholasticism, in general...

  there's one more...
i'm sure there's one more...
it's related to egalitarianism...

what's the word i'm looking
for?
a morphed liberalism
of: one freedom can eventually
over-compensate
another statement of freedom
and deride the former liberty
with a... ore ******-up
liberty...

but there was another mode of thinking,
i'm sure of it...

you know that people
are afraid of experiencing dialectics,
when they have to phrase
their opinions:
but these are my personal
opinions...
   yep... stated in a public sphere...
why is it that i don't
make videos?
      your freedom of speech
is one thing...
mine? constricted to the comment
section...
   this? an extension of thought,
since i'm bashing a blank piece
of "paper"...

what was the other root of the English
school of thought?!
no... it wasn't universalism...
England, given the stated terms...
is a covert communist state...
a subdued communist state...
a dubiousness from the empirically
tested experiment...
where did Marx and Engels
concentrate their observational
capacities if not in England?
weird...

  communism originated in England
under, said, sociological observations,
was tested in Mongolia...
and then returned via Russia to
Eastern Europe...

*****... gets to my head...
it might come to be two days later,
but i'm sure i wanted
to work with another school of thought
from the English demand
for the egalitarian take on things...

looking at the English,
i see a people burdened by a desire
to make "things"... fair...
          i see people teasing Utopia...
a people who haven't experienced
a momentary transition period
of a quasi-Utopia of communism....
within the countries that
received the Bolshevik mantra
and not the Marshall Plan payout...
even Sweden (neutral, source of inspiration
for the Nazis) and Switzerland
received Marshall Plan funds...

       but the English...
              what an oddity...
oh i don't imply a demeaning
interpretation...
       but the English are teasing
a revival of socialism...
you know how many archetypical
human emotions socialism curbs?
you can't do it unless
subjected to foreign rule...
given the current Brexit agreements:
now's your chance...

but socialism really did originate
in this fine, fine land...
Marx didn't look alongside
Engels outside of England...
they looked at Liverpool...
and children being employed...
German children had Krampus...
English children had
work in the factories...

this probably is an over-simplification
of history, but all the details
are there...
personally?
i find English existentialism
(if there is such a "thing")
over-powered by Darwinism's
over-simplifications...
Darwinism, having killed modern
or pre-modern history,
having to expand beyond
our known, and kept history...

a big bang theory i can deal
with...
i can congest it into a subscript
of words, via a conceptualization
of atoms...
and bigger atoms,
suns... protons, neutrons,
planets...
and electrons...
lost in the realm of sub-atomic
particles and antimatter...

but when i go back to Poland?
you know what i don't hear much of?
overly simplified existential
explanations pivoting on
nothing, but Darwinism...
in England it's all Darwinism,
and not much more...
i guess when Einstein disproved
Newton,
the only thing motivating
English culture boiled down
to focusing and pivoting on Darwin...

outside of England?
you know how important Darwin
is?
          in Poland... Mickiewicz...
a poet...
                         Copernicus...
            a astronomer...
            and in Russia?
Dostoyevsky...
          Tolstoy...
                     Mendeleev,
Tchaikovsky,
Rasputin,
                      Prokofiev­,
Bulgakov...
        Kandinsky...
               Anna Andreyevna...
Chekov...
                      how much is
Michael Faraday worth these
days in England,
if you're going to celebrate
only the scientists
and shove every artist
into the shadow of Shakespeare?!

i really shouldn't drink
*****...
                       i go crazy crude,
mad and... it's *****!
       you can't mellow out like
you could mellow out with
ms. amber, of the Scottish highlands!

The eternal tango of the maestro manifests itself in nigh infinite ways.
With the flick of the artist's brush, the stroke of the novelist’s pen or the chicken scratch of the scholar’s nib, legacies are etched, history is written and the world is shaped.
The astronomer, the craftsman and the physician all have one thing in common: Mastery.
Such pinnacles of skill have decades of their lives consumed, nay devoured in the pursuit of perfection, of greatness. Like grains of sand slowly falling into a furnace are the seconds of our lives, trickling, melting into puddles. But as sand melts, it forms shapes; therein lies the potential. Moldable puddles, colourless, devoid of naught but a clear medium.

The  smile on the moon
Seems a frown,
Since our world
Flipped
Up-side-down.

The one-legged runner
In a three-legged race
Smiled,
Cause his bi-pedded
Partner
Can't keep
Up the pace.

The one-eyed
Astronomer
Studied starry skies;
Discovered all the
Black holes
When he closed
His only eye.

It's only one's perspective
Making one selective;
I'll be more receptive
To those so soon rejected.