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Jon Kenton Jan 2013
What happened to our artists?
When did our beauty become surgically enhanced?
Goodbye Mr Hedberg, Hello Mr Macintyre.
Goodbye Ms Whinehouse, Hello Miss Perry.
Goodbye Mr Byron, Hello Ms Kardashian.
Goodbye Mr Mercury, Hello Mr Braun.
Goodbye Mr Wilde, Hello Mr Sheen.
Those smiling faces that tell us "everythings Okay!"
A farewell to the beauty of self destruction

Goodbye Art. Hello Art.
Lucius Furius Jul 2017
. . . go out into the evening,
    leaving your room, of which you know each bit,
    your house is the last before the infinite, . . .
    (from Rainer Maria Rilke's "Eingang", MacIntyre translation)
  
The light which strikes my retina
as I look at the Great Galaxy in Andromeda
left there two million years ago.
(Hominids made tools from stone then, but had not yet    
    learned the use of fire.
Genetic material from certain of these hominids has been passed
from one being to another and now is in my own body.)
  
Millennia from now, humans who have
colonized the farthest reaches of our galaxy,
laboriously creating and maintaining Earth-like atmospheres,
will marvel that there once was a place so perfectly suited to
    human life
that such labor was unnecessary. (Just as we marvel that orchids,
whose precise temperature and humidity requirements would seem to necessitate a greenhouse, grow wild in the Amazon.)
  
I cannot believe in a personal God,
intervening in human affairs, but stand in awe
of the terrible force which set the stars and galaxies in motion
--strewing them like so much confetti--;
the life-force running through each living creature,                                              
as straight and true as a ray of light from that galaxy in Andromeda,
willing us to live, grow and be fruitful.
Hear Lucius/Jerry read the poem:  humanist-art.org/old-site/audio/SoF_063_fullness.MP3 .
This poem is part of the Scraps of Faith collection of poems ( https://humanist-art.org/scrapsoffaith.htm )
JC Moyao Aug 2013
Garshin jumped from the fifth floor of his apartment building and died five days later at a Red Cross hospital.
Gilman prefered
chloroform over cance.
De Larra died of a broken a heart,
the bullet he took to the head only confirmed this.
Caicedo kept true to his words  "to live than more 25 years of age was madness"
60 pills for every year he wouldn't live to see
O' Brien got a call
from Hollywood and a
week later he drank himself to death.
The movie was sad, his life was sadder.
MacIntyre just wanted to keep warm in Brooklyn when he 
set his apartment ablaze.
Wallace hanged himself for knowing too much.
Me?
Ill die of natural causes on any given day
I lack the courage these men took to the grave
Hemingway- "if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it.
TERRY REEVES Feb 2016
MaC WAS IN YEMEN, SYRIA, IRAQ, LIBYA AND AFGHANISTAN,
WHAT A MESS - IT MUST BE SORTED AS QUICK AS HE CAN,
HE HAD A MEETING WITH A MILITANT LEADER - 'WHO ARE YOU?'
'MY NAME IS MaCINTYRE - I REPRESENT GOD,
YOU CAN CALL ME A HERETIC, BLASPHEMER IF YOU WISH
BUT IN TWENTY FOUR HOURS THERE WILL BE NOTHING FROM YOUR SATELLITE DISH - THE CREATOR IS TIRED OF YOUR INSUBORDINATION,
YOU'VE HAD EVERY CHANCE BUT MESSED UP SINCE YOUR CREATION;
YOU WILL BE REDUCED TO ROBOTS - ONLY MEASURED CONTROL,
FREE - WILL IS FINISHED - WE HAVE POSSESSION OF YOUR SOUL,
THE SAME MISTAKES WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN, EVERYTHING
WILL BE TAKEN FROM YOU - THERE IS NOTHING LEFT FOR YOU TO DO;
IF WE EVER GIVE YOU FREE - WILL AGAIN, EVERY TIME YOU DISSENT,
YOU WILL BE 'CLICKED' - NOTHING OF THE OLD MINDSET WILL REMAIN.
“The more you know, the more you know you don't know.”

Said quote attributed to Aristotle,
     stands the test of time,
     and not only did out last
many another aphorism,
     but most any learned person,
     would agree proverb cast
greater relevancy today,
     whereby bajillion minutiae doth blast

and bombard relentlessly tenured
     academician, or lay person till aghast
now (i.e. the 21st
     century in general), with fast
and furious incessant information explosion,
     more so than 384–322 BC,
     yet his nestled (chocolated),
     pronounced, revered, vast

paradigm touted as ever last
ting influence still
     vibrant approximately hast
encompassed two and
     a half millenniums past.
Hash tagged the
     "Father of Western Philosophy" -
     imagine us slew

of avid admirers
     lurching back and forth
     (in conjunction with the
     pitched cadenced lilt of Plato),
     say...by a playa in Kalamazoo
Michigan feted for, he warrants a kazoo
blown, who embraced forward doo
*** thinking spanned a gamut,

     where more'n few
adherents or immediate disciplines
     refining (and redefining),
     which amassed breathless
     comprehension aligned hitherto
an expanse of disparate subjects
     sewn (no needling,
     asper this feeble pun)

     to constitute an interrelated web,
     whereat convenience allotted
     quasi distinct abstract queue
     (preceding his sue bare rue
legacy) consigned his
     innate person to integrate
     (by syllogisms he drew)
correcting antiquated inaccuracies,

     and aligned a groovy,
     wheel lee, and well tread
     modernist twist (and shout),
     sans permeating Air Supply
     Bestie Boys, Beatlemania,
     Cold Play ying
     musically noteworthy, loo
pea pod casts, and even spurring

     Beethoven to roll over,
     while dee composing
     (sans my zany brainy adherence
     to "FAKE" information I eschew)
and essentially single handedly grew
the contemporary paradigm few
off fish shill educated
     people didst swallow

     hook, line and sinker, but perhaps
     an enlightened gentile and/or Jew
found credulity linkedin with the then
     far reaching somewhat sunnily
     revolutionary antithetical concepts only
     gull lib bull and/or cuckoo,
despite the logically
     substantiated veritable true

lee near custom fit, hunky
     dory, integrated metaphorical
     interlocking puzzling pieces
     rightly anchoring vast vista
     (realm of known knowledge,
     viz apple pi order)
     shipshape motley crue foo
fighting banded divers lee distinct

     whirled wide webbing
     did not experience
     smooth semantic sailing,
and rather recently
     (historically "speaking") Renaissance
exuded approbation, and found substantial
     adherents among cognoscenti,
     who took to heart as gospel truth,

     the expansive database
apropos christened Aristotélēs translated
     to mean Superior; best of thinkers,
whose missives dissected, inspected,
     and probed for ethical, philosophical,
     and rhetorical handy
     dandy blues clue
meriting nascent outlook, sans salient

     rubric quintessential pointing cue,
analogous to eternal spirit hovering,
     guiding, and favoring new
acolyte, or stalwart
     diehard Aristotelian hew
wing painstakingly, thru

prodigious tomes binding
     ancient (classical Greece) via
     Aristotelianism super glue
rebranded within modern roam'n Times
     Font 12 visa vis,
     when re: discovered
     anew by Martin Heidegger
Ayn Rand, and Alasdair MacIntyre.

— The End —