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Wk kortas Feb 2018
Once (not that long ago, perhaps, though we likely know better)
The summers were languid, liquid things without end
Each day fully equipped with a high sky,
The blue so all-encompassing, so all consuming,
That lazy fly ***** seemed to disappear
As if God had scooped them up like so many routine grounders.
We played, in a field long since abandoned
To crownvetch and scrub grass,
Twenty one--five points for those *****
The celestial powers had bobbled
And we were able to catch on the fly,
Three points if we took it on the hop,
One if we safely trapped it before it rolled stone dead,
And so our Julys and Augusts fluttered by,
Every bit lazy and aimless as butterflies or knuckleballs,
With the exception of the de riguer tribunals
In which the assembled debated and determined
Where bounce ended and roll began,
Where shoestring catch was reduced to single-point trap.

It all came to an end, of course;
At some point, we crossed a line
(Undelineated but firmly established nonetheless)
Where it was no longer advisable to attempt this at home,
Mere joy no longer an acceptable substitute for proficiency.
Find something else to do, kid, we were told,
And the bats went to the back of the closet,
The gloves and ***** consigned to a spot
(Where we would surely remember to find them)
Behind some canned tuna and Christmas lights,
The fastball blurring by us now,
The field a warren of subdevelopments and cul-de-sacs.

And so you’d forgotten,
Or perhaps just suppressed, the whole notion;
There were, after all, a gaggle of coupon books
With return addresses from an ever-changing confusion of banks,
Sales on pasta and milk, other fees and foundations
Politely requesting ones attention,
So you couldn’t be sure
That it was really the crack of an old thick-handled Adirondack,
Or the comforting thwick of the ball landing squarely
In the pocket of a Wilson A-2000,
Yet when you wandered to the window and peered out,
There they were, looking straight up at you,
Waving their hands like childlike Prosperos
Gesturing to reveal some fairytale glen.  
Come on back, they are saying, and you go down,
Powerless to resist, even if you had wanted to,
Returned instantly, seamlessly to a time and place
Where a shout of I got it! I got it!
Was all the prerequisite or vitae that was required,
And you are unable to bring even mock-edginess to your voice
When you insist I got that cleanly on the hop.  That’s three points.
The Great American Game is back in Florida and Arizona--not that it ever actually left.
John F McCullagh Jul 2013
J.K. Rowling is the latest
to call herself a bloke.
Three Bronte sisters
Made up male names
So they could write,
Not vote.
George Elliot
Was the nom de plume
of a British lady fair.
In Victorian times
It was de riguer
For a girl to feign
a pair.
Distaff scribes
Are not alone
In borrowing a name
Sam Clemens took
As “nom De Guerre”
The river cry
“Mark Twain”
And Stephen King
Who writes so fast
That he’s in overdrive
Adopted Richard
Bachmann as a name
And used it
for some time.
George Orwell
Once was Erich Blair
Lewis Carroll
was Charles Dodson.
“The Hobbit”
Was my nom de plume
But now
I haven’t got one.
Ken Pepiton Apr 2020
2020 - day 103 -- a long and winding story, fun, I re read it twice.

Wednesday, April 22, 2020
8:04 AM

Pharoah-ism is a thing.

It's in a class of words holding forms for governing,
herds of humans,
who can be fit to the form, walk this way,

like an Egyptian, indebted for all your worth

Trillions and trillions, soon enough,
the ghost of Everett Dirkson laughs at
another billion attributed to Carl Sagan,
"we ain't even thinking real money any more."

To whom does the government of, for, and by the people,
owe all the nation can invent

Some day we will learn each bit of reality, but

we, as a specie, a valued mod on the base line
must access our global brain.

China -- that is -- the military mind of China,

has egged on
the military might of the USA, offering hope

for all-out war on peace, for no reason.

War has never had a reason for which any good
could come. Never.

And I will defend to the death your right to disagree,
but not your right to fight and destroy me.

If peace and war were to meet on a distant shore,
peace might move inland, but

now, we meet here on earth as mere ideas empowered
by the codemaker; peace and war

tete a tete, cabezo y cabezo I betcha, like dos cabezos

peering ahead on I -10... on the road again...

this is a changing station stage of life...

fold down time.

monster employers, users and maintainers of
common flesh and blood eyes, ears and hands,
people of the commonest class;
some times sitting in boxes,
some times standing in lines, sometimes

watching welder robots do your dad's old job.


--- capital
= money = time.

Gotta minute?
Invest it in imagining you think, as in,

think

who holds those, no, not those,

these truths, these factions of the whole
truth
faction, not fraction,

truth
and nothing but as sworn to on tv via mirror neurons
and solidi-fied, pur-chased, caught, netted,

in plebeian pledges of allegiance from first
grade, in the sorting of useful citizens,

some may serve at the highest levels, lifted via
lessons proven learned in standard tests,

-- number two pencil, fill each box, complete-ly,

so a machine can discern your answer, and punch
through the insulating paper, to signal
each bit of evidence

coming into piles of assorted usefull knacks,

mark this one. Feed him Wattie Piper, make him
think, I can
think, I can, think, think a little think...


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of

How did Einstein think?

AI ai ai, we know. Not in words. Einstein was taught to think

in whatification. What if I

--- nail the sun to the sky and feel the earth move me at
-- twenty-five, or so
-- thousands of miles
per fifteen three hundred and sixtieths of a day
-- and a night, one whole day...

but N D Tyson taught me that trick, not Einstein...
and not all things count as worthy,
relatively, of attention paid.

The worth of a thought's open door invitation to the curiosity we
enjoy


Semantics (from Ancient Greek: σημαντικός sēmantikós,
"significant") 
is the linguistic and philosophical study of meaning 
in language,
programming languages,
formal logics,
and semiotics.
It is concerned with the relationship between signifiers
—like 
words, phrases, signs, and symbols
—and what they stand for in reality, their denotation.

On the subject of secrecy in general,

ah, no, we've no secrets, for here we have no truely
believable lies,

the truth will out, we say.
Life ain't fair, death had no hope, that's just

the way it is.
Wait and see. We had ein kleiner Gedanke, once
upon a mythical histerical time,

ah, think of any first blood in a world of secrets, such as we

formed from, even in famine, some seed was sown
each season,

some seed remained from first story peoples, preserved
in sacred places, safe,
until the dawning on you, that this is true, life always wins.

brightly lighted stage of history

no weakness... save where the blade meets the soft flesh
beneath a noble head bowing to think


fringe brushes my gnostic-itch, son of a gun,

son of a blade, edge, point

pierce the air, no pop, no apoptosist apostasy, see

we use words with no definitive meanings, right?

significance is cast aside, who cares
that's just semantics, I don' quibble bout {sign-if-i can-sense}
significance
or sign.
I wonder did we double down on a word righting there,
did we give meaning to a barely breathing

wind born lie, some interruptions signify engagement of

a clutch, a tool to grip the wild spinning trans-
*******, while

we slip into something more comfortable.
A higher, cruising 12 to 1 gear

My neighbor from two hills north, is coming to sit a while,

the guy has been called Cowboy, as a name, since all his siblings
knew him.

He is a walking archetype. And my friend. We share some burrs,
from wild meadows ridden on sole leather,

leaving a steaming auto-mobile by the side of the road,

aaah, the interruptions {more, with Oliver gone}

any line in context, is a step past last, a first of all the nexts

Nexts?
Options. Who determined this? My will being to discover this
fringe connection to the persistence on the fringe

of string theory strangling struggling

genera general, whole sorts of hu-mongolian signif-if-if ier yous.

Yous guys includes girls and nobody makes me say,

wombed AND un-wombed, man. So yous, youse, y'all you all;
you,
samesame, okeh. Plain and subliminal, wait and see. Losers win,

when they stop fighting fair.
Die and see what happens,
or imagine
you
know some body who did die and before he did he said,

Hide, and watch. AND now, you see,

caution once cast to the wind, calming all the rage required

to oppose the forces

¿? quare, sistere, wait, feel the urge to know, a click calque

see, new old idea, an old idea studied to the point of a word
formed to signify a set of things

cal-que-able, in curios kurio terms derived

from Phoencian merchants, who set up benches in all the ports.

Users of money, milkers of the exchange, worth-ship of silver,

balanced on the craftily formed me-assuring thing,

eight silver tid-bits makes one golden one, tid-bits fit

fingers, excluding thumbs, for thumbs play a role

mechanically in holding any thing, even

steady -- com-pre-hensive press press sure...

you got it, knowledge

ex-spands into wow... did it work?

Did we make a handle? Or a tool? No pressure, guess.

And Dave Goodman, rides into the west, with a QVC Lid-Lock

full of fabulous pasta cheese and celery, with peas.

A culinary experiment conducted by the grandmother
of all my grand children,

a most mazing teacher of balance's pre care-ious role

on an inclined plane sure to flatten the curve

--- are we in historical moments a generation long,
--- with second generations arrows
--- never quivered, these shafts I shot by faith at unseen things,

for which I have reasons. Were now the war,

we all agree war always cost far more than its worth in death,
robbing life from mankind,

unaware if there ever were a gospel truth. I say don't study war with carnal weapons.

Words carry us into real contextual contests for human sanity as a whole,
we can make peace,
we all can breathe easy, loose the tight jibbs {jaws}, gritted molars, loosen up...

Historically, it seems riddles became de riguer in ifity, but plainly,

only surviving stories survive.

Science knows no story which was eaten up and troubled m'bowels and made me know

boom boom boom, montezuma's revenge

in the spirit kah-blewy con ef ef ef fectual fervent

prayer/sayer saying/praying in timeless harmony

if we can agree... no good we imagine can fail,

let chirality meet diversity and error meet ciliation

conciliate celebration,

conciliate (v.)
"overcome distrust or hostility of by soothing and pacifying," 1540s, from Latin conciliatus, past participle of conciliare "to bring together, unite in feelings, make friendly," from concilium "a meeting, a gathering of people," from assimilated form of com "together, together with" (see com-) + PIE *kal-yo-, suffixed form of root *kele- (2) "to shout" (the notion is of "a calling together"). Related: Conciliated; conciliating; conciliary. The earlier verb was Middle English concile "to reconcile" (late 14c.).

take away my anti-grace, de
ify my chance appearance,

dance, mirror neuronically, sitting your chair-saddle,

y'put y'left foot in behind your right and

boom
y'hit a but, but this, but that, but some other thing,

you got only so much mortal attention,

so when one door closes, whatever you need, is not there,

here we see the old wise man who saved a city and no one knows his name,
he say, redundancy of instruction is the way of life.

fectual per effing e fect, non sensicle semantical ice, Gibsonian ice,

no sweat, we are wrapped in white linen,

we broke on through and waited for you.

Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also.

words we remember were words
meant
to stand tall understanding all things


differently, re
reading, the scene from Night Scenes in the Bible,
that
was a level of knowns
effectually un provable but by
common movie-complex unbelief release, let it be

-- lower missing efs, finding more attention {behind the scenes}

ef-fectual is conjugolly confusin my prudent nature.

or higher, north or sout, plus or minus h

who cares. We made it. This is today.

Meek inheritance day or the spirits judged by the degree day,
a holi
day
in which they trouble their own house, and recall the point that
pierced their own soul,

so to speak,

survived hating your own self for other's sakes,

sakes meaning  goodness and graciousness which

constitute the happy bits in ever,
the treasures found,

where a man's heart is,
my diamond farm is yours now,

my gift to you... only words.

I inherited the wind, my job is to finish melting the ice.

God and sinner reconciled is a song,

does that make it less true?

For us, ever began before today,

so today is that day or it is not, we wait to see

or we wait and see, seeing if

this were the day, when all things go my way,

or come my way, in the course of human events,

I may be ready if readiness is some form of kurios

assurance, blessed, said *****, in a song,

I agree, blessed assurance,
Hey-sus is mine, find his words bring comfort

2020 paradigm shift is common parlance, Cowboy uses that
and logos regularly and he is

old, by mortal standards, for an archetype he's barely ligandary
to most receptive sub caudal imps.

they can feel

him biting the bullet,
gritting his teeth on the Gerber Bowie-wannabe blued steel
blade, re-imagined in reread instead, bullets bitten can go off,

I know a kid fired a deadly-for-a-mile bullet,
with a hammer and a rock, so, knifes are dangerous, too,
so
as a mime-ical biting down, per
haps this hero-in-forming bites

a wooden drumstick, beating now with one,
biting down on the other
boom
boomto doom boom
boom
boomto doom boom... and as the beat goes on,

fringes find loose ends and latch on...

Dirac was an early Cher fan, and she was something like dys
lexical survivor of the year,
if she can, anybody can
I think I can read faster than

hmmm, slippery *****,
speaking memes as old as I remember, then

by the time I wondered if she were real or
a con structure
I lose my footing

slip on something comfortable, this promises to be

that night, in the legends, just prior to a marked, edge of night,

ever after post. Will you still love me,

tomorrow.... deeedly violins lift away any hope

of redemption, oh, ma, it was 1963, you had to have me

to sing your blessing into,
to hide your gift in me, no one must know, oh god
bless his heart...

no part of this vision is clear, nor plain, why is this my beatrice
cockatrice

Olden day, Robinson's cowboy preacher son, sowed a saying in my
core, I sup-pose, put
his phrase formed
an ever more pleasant link to Wikenberg,
on this shelf, see, we can remember the target by re

reading... remembering never drink from the Hasayampa.
and you can tell the truth
by
aquiring point on conscience. Taking thought.

Ethos keeps insisting we are in some offensive mode.
Thus the call for concentration, we are tunable now,

on some oldies but goodies websites...
Kenpepiton.com, for one.
mytechpeople.com is possibly in the archives.

Calebland.com long left to a bland b-break lacking dash,
early urls. imaginable as answers to
either wishes or prayers,

or desires... unseen, unthinkable tools to augment a

satisfied mind, completely ******, no direction home...

here, my heart, my contentment container,

at the moment, indistinguishable from any mortal concept of heaven.

Robinson's father's saying: {remembered just in time}

some times you have to stomp your own snakes.
he may have said, you gotta stohmp yerown dam'snakes,

but never would he have said: one must stomp one's own snakes.
Long -- but a fun run, kept my mind from waxing sentimental on the loss of my dog.
Wk kortas Dec 2016
They prefer if you don’t come in the normal entrance,
Where your actions and demeanor may generate
A semblance of disquietude and anxiety for those clients
With simple dislocations and the de riguer colicky infants.
Instead, you are directed to an inconspicuous doorway
Around the back by the dumpsters and empty pallets
To an unadorned room with to fill out the requisite paperwork
(Which proves quite difficult because you’re shaking;
Most likely because the room is so cold,
Or the folding chairs prove ancient and unstable),
Upon receipt of which they allow you
(Although this go-round
There’s no inked footprints or photo provided)
To take your baby back home.

As children, we learned those truths we needed to know
At the feet of claymation wise men
(Proffered to us through the good graces of Rankin and Bass)
That under-appreciated misfits will receive their reward in due time,
That Mommy and Daddy will sit,
Smiling as without a care in the world,
At the kitchen table with brother and sis
Over a piping hot breakfast forever and ever, amen
Before they adjourn to the shiny tree
Surrounded by legions of dolls, brigades of fire engines
(For Santa shall never disappoint any good boy or girl),
That children shall always bury their parents.
I now know that the snowman lied,
And that when he is removed from refrigeration,
He shall not reappear as the strong, substantial man of snow,
But become merely a puddle,
Then mist rising from the sidewalk,
As invisible as the ditties children sing
While jumping double-dutch,
As fleeting as a hug in the dark
After you’ve chased the monsters from under the bed.
sgail Feb 2023
Through uncommon tears,
I said "I love you"
in the basement, under a
de riguer traffic light.

I so wonderfully executed
shedding parts of me
that didn't fit to you---  
but you peeled me,
rind and all.

you said that if
"I were to start reading it,
John is a good place to start"

You said we were not
'evenly yoked,'

and I said
that we are not oxen.

— The End —