once upon a wrote


here and there, in fables and tales,
some in no guile and others
in chancier disguises,
some sine-known and some sign-unknown,
some dead in stillbirth,
some penned these words,
some a few decades old,
some of but a moment ago eyelash distant,
making me think that
someday I will scribe,
cobble some truths and
some falsehoods into one
leaping heaping melting scoop,
letting you decide,
which for better,
which for worse...

<•>

"No matter that plain words
are my ordinary tools,
With them I shall scribe the small,
Cherish the little, grab the middle,
Simplicity my golden rule,
Write they say,
about what you know best,
Surely in the diurnal motions,
The arc of daily commotion,
Do we not all excel?"

<•>

the reason we say so oft,
in whispers emboldened,

I love you

to our children
is not the utility of
its summarizing brevity

no, no.
it is because
the eloquence of simplicity
supersedes any other poem
any of us could ever write...

<•>

is this craft that chose you,
not defined by machine millimeters,
precision absolute,
curvatures, so eye-pleasing,
they demonstrate no tolerance
for tolerance of the ordinary?

the skill of words, too, cut so fine,
find the  extraordinary within,
refine, refine, refine,
shave away the trite,
the reused,
discard the instant recognition,
unusable

<•>

There are natural toxins in us all,
if you wish to understand the
whys, the reasons,
of the nearness of taking/giving away
what soully belongs to you,
do your own sums,
admit your own truths,
query not the lives of others,
approach the mirror...

<•>

The Truth Burden
is the accursed need obligatory,
the sacred sanctity requisitioned,
when the whenever,
chooses to drop in and upflag the mailbox,
an uninvited invitation,
announcing with precise bluntness,
that precisely now,
is the tool crafted moment
and you fool,
the selected tool

you must render unto Ceaser,
by your own hand,
render your own rendering,
do your own undoing,
go forth and in haste,
will thyself into the cauldron of the
Great Mystery of Creation

you cannot lie in poetry

<•>

come, sit for awhile, in poet's nook,
soft pillows for our hard Adirondack chairs,
situe hard by the bay, if too hot, we'll slow
drift to the sun room of
lace curtains and suicide poems,
still we'll observe the water, the rabbits, the cacophony low,
listening to all the noisier, nosier
creatures asking themselves,
and the trees and leaves,
where did all those poets come from?

<•>

to the interior delve,
via brush or limb,
pen or music,
the exposition, the exploration,
the reconstruction of composing
one's self, creation and destruction
of your own myths

movement of arms and legs,
sparseness of simplicity,
subsidiaries of centricity,
tributaries of complexity

<•>

how cold are the carpenter's hands,
the weather, but an added obstacle,
this heat, makes dying different difficult,
the wood bearing cross requires additional nails
and flesh, for the extra load he's bearing,
when it snows blood in Jerusalem

the whole world can transition
when one man dies and another is risen,
where oh where lies then, the juxtaposition?

there is none, for man is man,
his divine spark, embedded,
to his maker's mark, welded and wedded,
neither snow or sun,
can ever extinguish

<•>

now I ken better distance 'tween
artist and art,
I, a workingman's
daily dallying in simplistic machine craft,
my works deservedly lost in
the water-falling
of the endless also rans

non-nebulous distances.between skies of
Oregon country blue and
the worldy worn asphalt grayed words of
a graying man aging,
then let clarity speak, in plainest harmony,
know my deference’s soars to the high above,
one of us at birth, god gifted,
was not I,
it ain't me babe, but
one of us, his tongue,
like Moses-stung
with a hot coal
of language's divinity

<•>

Kids play differn't these days
not so flat, more points of focus in less time,

more  POVs and Portals and Morphic Resonance and such

Minecraft. If you never watched a child at play
building a world from available resources,
near-infinite, digital resources limited
by algorithms based on

science.
Eco-industrial-only-mortal-home-known science.

You should see it.

Stones and plants and animals and winds and water
using right, effecting change, shaping things
in her world.

You should see what your grandchildren think.

They have access to tools we only imagined.
Remember what you imagined a road grader could do?

She built heaven with a stairway and I suggested
an elevator.

She said I could build one, a heaven elevator,
for old people in a world I make up.

She had planned to teach me if she had the chance.
She made me several avatars, she knows me.

wizard grandpa who asks if we know
the sweet influences of Pleiades,

his hand points up to the right
because this is the night after the first

quarter of the final moon pre-solstice
and he is looking west.

That one,
that is the one I will be-- wizard grandpa
square head with a pyramid on top,

minecrafty me exploring the undeveloped
fractal morphing algorythms

I'll-go grandpa, go go rhythm of the winds

drifting in what might have been a micro fiber dust bowl
waste land of 8640 chips and Zunes

(you can listen to books and play, Grandpa, at the same time)

Ah, Sam Harris, you asked a reason for the faith that is in me and my grandchildren know it so honor is at stake

and many other pride sourced sorts of things
contention tension challenging the tensegrity of made up minds

working together, serially parallel on every level of the grid, kid

Worlds with no evil intended,
that can be envisioned, practically, tested,
in Minecraft the game in conjunction
with the suggested myth in
Minecraft the interactive story

and Grandpa's story
in the world he migrated from, the journey way and back to

The Desert in The Rain shadow of the Moral Landscape
we can jump off right here

I have photos, in the cloud

trust me, things hap
ex acted
when
done
didone done
done
AM radio
The golden tones of Johnny Gravel
Kay tripple AAAAAAAAAA

A delightful ditty from the fifties programing,
in the fifties this one goes out to Rosemeade

Ah, the idyllic four bedroom ranch
now on the end of a street that dead ends
at the I-5 cliff.

A tune, whistle, while you work,
it's a hap hap happy day all the clouds have blown off

the doors of my perception
my mind expended, spent fi'ty years on the trip,
weary wearisome make ever much
some effort to discover the act

of effectual prayer
which took prayer, effectual or not, by faith, leap
fast
over the edge,
you learn that, day one, in Minecraft Training
by Brynn Aulyn

next is always over the edge,

of my perception
my expent
effort to discover the act

of effectual prayer
which took prayer,
and fasting,
over the edge,
you learn that, day one, in Minecraft Training by
******* Grandpa

next is always over the edge,

but I did not grow old after playing Minecraft as a child.
I grew old after playing with dynamite in a mine
as a child.

Major POV cred Grandpa

My weapons are not carnal.

Is there a monster if jack
finds treasure at the top of the beanstalk
and says to hell with the suffering
mother so he becomes
a god, in harmony with the giant, doing any good he can?

Let the dead bury the dead.

This is for ever.
What they don't know won't,
will not, would not, has no volition to hurt them, ever.

Good, you know, good. No good is ever bad and
the nintendray dooblay is, like rackabilly,
intentional
pre
positioning me for the idle word of the day to be ******
from hiding into the light of
double entendre? how do you mean?

light. OK, okeh, no other resupposings,

there is never light in a creation myth
until some utterance of the idea of light is communicated

which btw
mean there must be sentience from the get go

and mebbe, I thank on it, other wise, as well

as before, the get go,

it was gitgo, all the way down back ahead to Happy Together,
the song,
British invasion,
very creative hope sorta vibe
Turtles all the way down,
Hawking could not put it in words. He could keep time.

You had to be then, it was a brief history. Funny though.

The old ones gone on, they say okeh.
We good to go
happy hunting. Merry Christmas, take any open door
and listen.

The game is making many decisions based on what you pay attention to. In reality attention weighs decisively more than money in any form.
Doncha luvit, life is so unbelievable, until

you die, you think, you've seen something like what you think is possible happen, you've seen death objectively

anybody can do that right? That is evil.

Killing or dying?

Both.

Lizard brain.

the great game, neath ever more layers of moth eaten cotton and worm spun silk lace

crocheted and starched to make doilies for the parlor
when the pastor comes to pay his due attention

to chicken, made sacred for the occasion
in boiling oil, not golden,  but
fried chicken could look golden in the right light seen from the right height, apron strings high.

I could say my grandma served the man of god a golden dead bird.
And the blessing that was said came upon me

because the window in the top of my head never shut.
Air head. hearer of secrets where secrets
make themselves known, as truth sets one free. Jesus knows.
If anybody does. Wait and see. Be good.

Soyal, Yule, Christmas and the contenders, also rans
in the mid-winter hope leverage ceremony
rites of passage missing
or missed? Missed
Messages of a way promised where there seemed no way.

It is finished. The wireless grid. On the AM dial one

wee zero beat beyond simple,

you find sublime. define that. You feel what I said, Merry,

my wish to you, Merry, message of the promised way to you,
make you merry upon remembering

good wins, it never quits winning.
good, we know, personally,
good, right now,
not bad, we can touch, you and me, imagine that being good.
if feels Christmassy, in that good way.

the old way, where good is, find that. Then later, I am the way, believe me when I say I know where the kingdom of God is,

My granddaughter, somehow, gifted me a Map,
it was delivered by a messenger fly.

"…ours is not to reason why." that is the only fragment
of the light
brigade?

call the philosopher for a meme:
Ah, we need an axiom,
some hope for humanity,
Christmas isn't working as well as it did,
Chanuka and Kwansa are distant also rans,

Where is hope if the wise have all been infected with…

"The fact that an opinion has been widely
held is no evidence whatsoever that it is not utterly absurd."

that's the meme sir,
but nothing clicked.
Bertrand Russell
wait
Ah, more, eh,
a semi colon not a point of completion.

That's the secret in all symbols to sibyls, my boy,
know what you meant
when you imagined them meaning
anything

"The fact that an opinion has been widely
held is no evidence whatsoever
that it is not utterly absurd
; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

From <https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/172166-the-fact-that-an-opinion-has-been-widely-held-is>


In the world you shall have tribulation
but be of good cheer,
it makes everything better.

Merry Christmas, may the messages you trust be true.

I am an outlaw like Jesse James
I'm not much for playing games
Loyalty is all I demanded
Lies I simply can not stand
Tell to me only truths
Or I'll knock out your ******* tooth
The place we're in is a high stakes game
But in the end you'll be glad you came
We'll float a boat, we'll get real high
While we're cooking, you just might cry
If you have thoughts of rolling over
You'll end up under the sweet, red clover
We're not much on floppy tongue snitches
You'll find they end up in deep dug ditches
But in our canoe you can ride all night
Smoke rolls up it's such a sight
On our boat you can ride for days
Sleep rans fast and far away
So come and play in our devilish way
We'll talk for hours, till there is nothing left to say

The padlock on the continuous barnstorm of a transcendent time whose bunkum is transmuted consciousness aligning with parallax to a congruent worldview is not axiomatic but certainly a veridical property of reality. The universe is as much concept as percept and both properties of consciousness that lead to adaptive behavior are tethered to the eccentricity of the observer rather than the oblong nature of the observed where errors in prima facie judgments delineate the saplings of humanity to beaze under the proctored sunlight of an eternal sunshine that withers seldom to the whims of capricious arbitrage of those whose hubris exceeds the limits of the intellectual frontier because they are gilded with bricolage mentalities that scaffold the skeletonized worldview rather than apprehending the concretism and synthetic arraignment of interrogable reality in a manner that acknowledges the factitious intersection of pioneering understanding and the corporeal existence of realities both transcendent in spatiotemporal mapping and reversible propinquity to the sensible acquisition of tangible knowledge. I contest the worldview of many philosophers as a callow retread of basic logic whose ambition is underserved by a desire for prolix pellucidity rather than cogent succinct promethean formulations that dare to muster the herculean task of demystification even if the entropy of formulation is always flawed by the jaundice of the observers rather than the disdain of the observable consensus. We swing by a filipendulous thread that dangles speculation and reifies the blinkered piebald world of spotty concatenations among neurons recognizing that incomplete associations become the staples of philosophies that are precarious in some logical foundation but sturdy enough to weather the vagaries of the bluster of mendicants who verge on comprehension but pale in comparison to the monolithic edifice of so-called truth when the defalcation of figureheads supplants the clerisy as the new proctor of knowledgeable assertion. I contend that foofaraw is a primeval instinct of community ecology that expedites the balkanization of otherwise unitive properties of society and ravages them with bickering based on clashing predilections that are bellicose and combative rather than irenic and balmy. The acerbic fates of many leads to a rudimentary pessimism or a chary optimism that chides against the fortified exegesis of divinity that can be both proclaimed and stultified for its latticework properties of buttressing society in a permutation that is nimble in some respects but too turgid and rigid in others. The goal of humanity is to become a pliable instrument of a pliable universe that does not rely on buzzword dogmatism or the masquerade of hollow punditry but that relies on self-reliant principles for ascertaining veracity and impugning mendaciloquence with vigilant alacrity rather than casual sportsmanship that reaches finality only upon the handshakes of a battle waged that concedes the impotence of gladiatorial spectatorship as just a gambit of the half-witted cockney witticisms and shibboleths of sportive diversion rather than consequential and decisive reckonings with the subaudition that undergirds all events of any consequence with either a clinched victory or a callow defeatism of a futilitarian worldview that stoops to reconciliation only to propitiate antagonism and buffer against the truculent brunt of weaponized coercion to checkered flags that arbitrate the outcome of a binary polarity of humanized affairs. The majesty of creation is that reversible boundaries can be permeated in a bi-directional manner through the artifice of concerted thought rather than the orchestration of a linear traipse through the deserts of an inclement fate won immediately when projected upon the tangent of any given velocity at any point of acceleration away from the targeted impetus that grants only a partial vantage, a cantle of reality that is fragmented and piecemeal rather than circular and emergent. The most dire battle that humanity faces is the attrition of circumstance by the purposive declarations of imperious authority that seeks to muzzle the ingenuity of many for the deliciation of the few creating an accidia among the clerical institute of thinkers that imposes hogra that few people can grapple with that they are marooned into a cloister that reaps fewer rewards for an ascendant intellect than a virulent libido can clutch with predatory gallops against the also-rans that fight for carnality rather than the ethereal principles lingering within the grasp of many if it became a cynosure of worthy heralded acclaim. We witness the mass fecklessness of giftedness as a shackle of those whose plaudits come intrinsically fortified but sustain none of the abuses that the pedestrians would like to obtrude upon enlightenment to curtail and abridge the art of invention like the coagulation of blood to rob the vitality of throbbing pulse of importunate self-discovery of its macroscopic vista and its telescopic foresight about the future hodgepodge of a recursive fractalized reality besieged by the enemy of linear logical formulations implemented by ivory tower psychologists to muzzle the empowerment of abstruse language in order to make savory the nostrum of the apothecaries of delegated truth bereaved of recourse beyond certain leaps they cannot fathom well enough to flicker with even a faint transient wisdom that is designed to be amenable only to the supernal nature of ideation rather than the caprice of bedazzled humanitarianism. We need to forswear the -isms that flicker with doctrinaire dogmatism and flirt with forceful harangues that exhort a codified message and launch veridical properties of recondite etherealism into an immovable orbit whose inertia can broadcast a singular message of recoil against puritanism in science or skepticism in faith. The bedrock of this message is the deployment of useful extravagance without inordinate delay, the drivel of malcontent transmogrified into the prattle of estimable giants that have stature among the leviathan enough to recriminate against the autarky of self-smug simpletons that infest the world with barbarous indecencies and crude prepossessions that abortively crumple when met with the acerbic teleological gravity of ulterior consequence rather than blossom under the siroccos of manufactured wind designed for windfalls that always create a crestfallen aftermath from the anticlimax of understanding leading to the desiccation of consequence and the engorgement of precedence. These frangible realities become buoyant because the physics of the public dialectic insulates the creaky rickety vestiges of canonical knowledge as a sworn precedent inviolable and immune as a building block of all scholasticism, a retread of parchment recycled over and over again to entrench the past as the titanic vehicle that dictates the future of thought even though the porous inconsistencies of the vagrants of crude formulation make such a vessel less seaworthy than scientism and dogmatism of the monolith would have you believe to be true. The querulous quips of the uninformed predominate with such clutter that the armamentarium against useful idiocy is stagnated into a resigned accord with infernal subjugation of the public volition to insubordinate against a system of parochial enslavement rather than a catholic enlightenment whose universalism of principle ensures a steadfast society guided by scruples rather than undermined by the prickly thorns of abrasive contrition and the magnetism of empathic concern that sabotages the clarity of intelligence and provides a welter in the place of a well-arrayed code of peculiar but defiant distinctiveness that acts as the splinter that cracked the intangible but refractory borders of human inclination and demonstrated the sheer force of golden consistency rather than fickle withering resolve. I exhort and implore the world to heed the best minds that realize the syncretism is answerable to contradiction rather than scuttled from beneath by the impudence of its assertions against the common propriety when it stakes controversy as a gamble to aver the veracity of worldviews that violate orthpraxy with gusto as a brazen gallantry to rescue a foundering planet that seeks disequilibrium in harmony rather than an equilibrated sensibility that is proud to discriminate properly and honestly to clinch fact rather than kowtow to factitious slumber of somniferous kumbaya that is too deferent to maxims that are unduly polite only because charisma supersedes genius in its efficacy to mobilize people to fulfill their roles. With the miscegenation of justice that occurs because of expedience we find holes in many legalistic precedents because they anoint pettifoggery over sensible jurisdiction and face a leaky and ramshackle fate to foment paternalism and divide the clerisy among certain key considerations in order to save face rather than to impose a clarity of orderly supervision that seeks to dissipate the embroiled spiderwebs of dodgy prevarication and quacksalver logic to once and for all ascertain the truth that lurks beyond the primal jaundice of Kafkaesque confusion.

I am an outlaw like Jesse James
I'm not much for playing games
Loyalty is all I demanded
Lies I simply can not stand
Tell to me only truths
Or I'll knock out your ******* tooth

The place we're in is a high stakes  game
But in the end you'll be glad you came
We'll float a boat, we'll get real high
While we're cooking, you just might cry

If you have thoughts of rolling over
You'll end up under the sweet, red clover
We're not much on floppy tongue snitches
You'll find they end up in deep dug  ditches

But in our canoe you can ride all night
Smoke rolls up it's such a sight
On our boat you can ride for days
Sleep rans fast and far away
So come and play in our devilish way
We'll talk for hours, till there's nothing left to say

your words are raw, exposed, honest
in each other do we finally trust
all the metaphors, all the similes
fail to capture the essence of you and me
forms of expression known to man
music, art, poetry all also-rans
together we are light, air, complete beings
reveling in emotional perfection

I am the ghost of relationships past
You can see I'm very busy, so many don't last
I haunt the hearts of the also-rans
I don't do it cause I can
No, it's with compassion
I understand the sorrow
That it won't go away
I offer solace, enough to say
Have hope and appreciation
Some understanding
For I too feel their hurt
You probably don't know
But we ghosts are built that way

Take the couple I just met
Penny is from heaven
Ted is the best
A good man at the core
But he strayed from the nest
They split-up
Both are now bereft

This is how I just worked that one
I whispered to them
That maybe she should forgive
And he should never forget
How wonderful life used to be
Perhaps it would be best
To talk again, to walk again along that garden path
Love can work on the rebound
But you've got to take that chance

I'm happy to report these fresh results
They've agreed to relate
Establishing romantic relations once again
They're going on date, on which I shall accompany them
To ensure that things go well
Then it's home to Mrs. Ghost
Whom I first met at the Heartbreak Hotel

I found you between the covers
Laid bare before me,
A beginning a middle and an end
All there for me to discover,
On white sheets, in among the small print
Along with accompanying photographs
A catalogue if you will
In chronological order, unchangeable
As this is now a past event.

But these aren’t your words
There are quotes I’ll give you that,
But not an autobiography, this truth
Belongs to someone else’s twisted opinion
Through research and interviews with also
Rans, so where are you really, not here
Not raw emotion, frustration, devotion
No one saw inside your head, plucked
Your thoughts and put it down on paper.

Let tyrants shake their iron rod,
And Slav’ry clank her galling chains,
We fear them not, we trust in God,
New England’s God forever reigns.

Howe and Burgoyne and Clinton too,
With Prescot and Cornwallis join’d,
Together plot our Overthrow,
In one Infernal league combin’d.

When God inspir’d us for the fight,
Their ranks were broke, their lines were forc’d,
Their ships were Shatter’d in our sight,
Or swiftly driven from our Coast.

The Foe comes on with haughty Stride;
Our troops advance with martial noise,
Their Vet’rans flee before our Youth,
And Gen’rals yield to beardless Boys.

What grateful Off’ring shall we bring?
What shall we render to the Lord?
Loud Halleluiahs let us Sing,
And praise his name on ev’ry Chord.

A storm is coming,
  the sky will cry

Each cloud a tissue,
  old light to die

The gale once gone,
  all hope renewed

From end to end,
  the picture blue

The circle spins,
  the cycle turns

What came before
  must then return

The seasons frozen
  by grand decree

One reason chosen
  to set you free

All time a servant
  His master plan

The past and future
   just also-rans

This moment precious,
  this moment blessed

To live within you
—your heart at rest

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2018)

for Harlon, the brimful poet of Oregon*

I am

a wanna be city boy,
pretend-poet, weighty troubled this day,
by misdirected words
sent my way by a  country troubadour

he, a poem penned,
a reflecting pool, a two way mirror,
deserving of reversing,
of homagin' the sender
much better than the recipient

now
I ken better distance 'tween artist and art,
I, a workingman's daily dallying in craft
complex with the brutish tools of a forgettable vocab,
my works deservedly lost,
in the water-falling of the
endless also-rans

non-nebulous distances
between skies of
Oregon country blue

and
the worldly worn asphalt grayed words
of a graying man aging,
in plainest English,  let clarity speak,

one of us at birth,
god gifted,
not I,
one of us, for his tongue, like Moses-stung
with a hot coal of language's divinity

blessings, the keenest of nature,
where they divide, how they intersect,
his brimful heart in our eyes
fulfills the passerby's thirst  for revelations,
small shards of shared sensibilities

my voids filled by words of his quill

"to see his forest ‘s poetic beauty
for to see beyond the pendant beauty
within its magnificent grandeur
of his own gifted heart’s nurtured trees"

This was written April 15, 2017
for Harlon Rivers
for Nat Lipstadt