Journeyman

By my will I’ll 

Employ my craft 

With fine-honed axe

And shaping adze.

For a shipwright 

Am I, and it is said 

That if you’d sail

‘Cross lake or sea, 

I’m the man you’ve 

Need to hail.

I’m also he who will,

With wood and occult 

Binding spells,

Build for thee the final

Ship you’ll ever need,

Made to finely fit

The human form. 

With it Gjöll you’ll ford,

With your shield and 

Spear and shining sword,

To feast with Gods and 

Stand with them, 

Heroes all, afore the doors 

Of Valhalla’s hallowed halls.

Quaff your final horn of mead,

Speak if you’ve a final rede

Then gather ‘bout Odin all,

Gods and men standing tall 

Who from blood-soaked 

Fields Valkyries chose,

Dead the flesh left to mould. 

Now sounds Heimdallr’s Horn, 

That long awaited battle call,

As peals of thunder bless 

The marching horde, in this 

Preordained final 

War.

On War

Is it the fault of Hollywood or something else but a lot of civilians don’t understand that war is all about kill or be killed and it is a definite bonus to tilt that ratio to your own benefit whenever and however you can. War has nothing to do with with polite knights and some fantasy of chivalry. That is why soldiers took the collapsible field shovels (“entrenching tools”) they were issued and sharpened their edges into blades. If a soldier does not do that he or she is depriving themselves of a weapon that just might save them in a tight spot.

As for a reputation as being brutal and unrelenting warriors, it is that reputation that could (and did for the Canadians in WWI) result in bloodless victories. The term “shock trooper” was first coined by the Germans in WWI to describe the Canadians, who reduced their casualties because at times the Germans would avoid contact rather than engage.

Check out the 3 part series “Far From Home” for a look at the experiences of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in World War I.

And just btw, those who believe that they can set rules for war are well intentioned fools. Since it first began war has always had one and only one rule: victory. If you don’t intend to win, don’t waste lives by even getting started.

WWWhat?

I have 198 apps on my phone and what do I do with it? Mostly surf YouTube all day. Either I’ve lost my mind or the internet has lost its way. “Effortless” is now synonymous with “mindless.” Today’s internet is something that I am slowly learning to hate.

Misdirection

A strange night ends

In meaningless morning.

Sebastian plays calming 

Chords just out of sight

But, I’m confused again:

Which of us is 

Truly playing?

Who’s the composer 

And who is composed?

And what have I lost?

At first I thought a script,

Then, the refined runes

Of a score which 

No one was keeping.

A musical notation to 

Fix the melodic pose,

The harmonic of 

The underclothes. 

Tweak and trim until 

It’s time to leave 

And we’re dressed to kill.

The sheet upon the 

Podium gleams pristine 

Stripped of its notes, 

Leaving but lines 

On paper 

In black distress.

America: Election 2020

I’m not sure that ironic is quite the right word but there are folks in America who fear a race war depending on how the election plays out. 

A race war is precisely what Charles Manson wanted to ignite. What a vindication it would be were he to be proven a prophet.

Antifa: Trump’s Invisible Enemy

Antifa is not an organisation, not even a loose coalition. Antifa is an idea: anti-fascism or, more broadly, anti-authoritarianism. You cannot round up and arrest an idea or a concept and, in the case of anti-fascism, even if it was possible why would you want to? Unless you are a fascist. But it isn’t possible, just like you can’t imprison democracy. I would like to know who invented the contraction “antifa,” and why. It has certainly not made political dialogue any easier. In fact, it has achieved the exact opposite. It seems that the majority of people DO believe in the existence of an organised party called “Antifa.” Congratulations, whoever you are. One of the first steps in controlling a population is to feed them disinformation, in order to modify their thinking to better conform to your party’s line. An undereducated population unused to critical thinking is the best material out of which to sculpt the society of your dreams and, in the USA, you have a large population perfectly suited to being herded.

Daphne

Ms Daphne Alphabet 

Chartered a Lear-brand jet

Saw a man she’d never met

Found the love she’d never get 

Lived a life with no regrets 

Smiled a bit once touched by Death 

Blew Her a kiss with her last breath 

Gould Inclusion

For all of the civility and sophistication the Western World has chosen to associate with “classical” music, fans of it do appear to wax rabid at any hint of controversy. Do they know that Bach didn’t have a radio in his living room? And that what today we call “classical” music was effectively pop music at the time when it was composed. They didn’t have hit singles but there was a brisk trade in sheet music. Write a good piece and as soon as word of it got ‘round, everyone with the means wanted their own copy. It has always paid to be popular.…

Night Vision

Sun long set, in these

Small hours I sit

Watching the darkness.

And what does 

My lonely vigil win?

Over and in the 

Still black lake 

Doubled stars spin

Along with the moon

And its identical twin.

I don’t hear the waves,

I hear but my heart,

So with beauty overfilled,

That this nocturnal vision,

Merely by its sacred sight

Might well cause 

My awed heart’s

Division

Into parts.

Dining Awhile

“I hope that Madame and Monsieur find our dishes to be satisfactory?”

“Oh, I do! I haven’t even seen these dishes in a sack o’ dog years! They are just SO lovely!”

“Madame is too kind. I believe we’ve had these from the beginning. As we say, Melmac’s the platter that matters!”

Heard In Passing

“Turn left up here.

  To see the falls.”

“But I’ve already seen the falls.”

“No, you have not.”

Greta and Gaia

Beau on Greta’s speech of a year ago:

https://youtu.be/_bL5BVW_nT0

The relevancy of that message operates just like the Doomsday Clock. Every day that passes without proactive action against climate change is one more tic of that biological clock towards the point of no return. Then there will be no more warnings, no more moving speeches, nowhere to run and hide. 

Instead, we will be the first sentient species on Earth to have earned the dubious distinction of watching ourselves become extinct for reasons that we are not only responsible for but which ourselves predicted decades in advance. You cannot assign blame for our doom on any particular country or region, because this coming catastrophe carries communal blame, for acts of commission and omission. 

But though we stand on the precipice, we’ve yet to step over it. You know what you must do; it’s been talked about for ages. And you still have time to act.

But not much.…

Who Does Not Race Cannot Lose

Curiosity is the bait.

Details are the weight.

Passion hides the hook.

Hazy is the sight of those 

who rashly race for wisdom.

America, I Salute Thee!

I have to say that I really do admire many Americans. Were I to have been born in that star-crossed nation, with a dough-covered deep-fat fried elephant’s rectum on a stick masquerading as President, I would have emigrated 2 or 3 years ago. That so many American residents still believe that there’s a chance to build a life in the USA and on this planet is, if nothing else, admirable. What exactly is the catafalque that supports this faith in a future I do not know but, I take my hat off in a salute to the US of A, a country that has never let mere facts impede their progress as they crawl towards whatever it is that the future will bring!

Predicates

If the night

Is moonless

Is starless

Do you believe 

The sky’s still there?

(To say that the night is dark strikes me as rather redundant.)

Gods Of The Whirled

From the corners four 

The Divine arrive

To tryst once more; 

To create and hear

Music for the spheres. 

Pan picks up his pipes, 

Plays disjointed parts.

Still more to imbibe

Til Pan’s set to start; 

Mars beats on his drum,

A true martial air 

Which Venus contrasts 

With a whistling wind 

O’er waves that do crash

And in crashing, rhyme

With the clashing below 

Where Vulcan forges

Great gifts to bestow 

‘Pon gods and mortals

When Chronos says so.

Now Zeus has arrived 

A lyre held in hand, 

Orders are given 

To that holy band 

Gathered for reasons 

But gods understand, 

Yet all assembled 

Send songs up on high.

Tuned tones from gods fly;

Tones keep heaven’s order,

Keep the spheres in place. 

We can but wonder:

Do the equations 

We’ve struggled to trace

Truly exist?

Or are they and we

Some steps removed 

From all we seem to see,

From real reality?

A Life Affair

Romeo and Juliet, 

Once they loved, 

We can’t forget. 

If the sky could 

Tell its tale 

They’d lie there still, 

Cold and pale.

The ashes of their

Phoenix love 

Both blessed and 

Cursed from high above. 

Be they doves or 

Something more, 

Their mem’ries shall

Ne’er glide past

Death’s dark door.

Our Covidian Culture

I have a Covid-19 contact warning on my phone now. The basic functionality was installed as an update to the iPhone, which knows what country you are in and who/what the responsible authority is. If I were to leave Finland I would just add my new location to the Exposure Notification monitor. The update was installed maybe a month ago (I wouldn’t trust my memory to hold onto a brick of glue). Today I installed the official Finnish Covid app. It didn’t do anything spectacular. A two week FIFO exposure memory became active; nothing special beyond that.

Reading the tiny text only confirmed my first doubts about the system. The entire scheme is based on two premises: 1) Ideally, everybody has a smartphone, which is a problem for some of the most vulnerable people: the elderly and young children. 2) Like capitalism and communism, in order to succeed you need a completely selfless and honest populace. If your phone could independently detect whether you are infected or not, that would be a quantum leap forwards for the efficacy of the system but, no, the phone owners have to voluntarily tell the system about their diagnosis. Every attempt at setting up a social utopia on Earth has failed. And they have failed because a perfect society will only work if the society’s members are perfect. 

I put this self-protection software on my phone but I don’t expect to get a single alert. An illusion of safety for the masses, masses that won’t even wear a mask. They are not even worth the labour or the cost it would take to save them. Just give them a free sample of a new flavour of Kool-Aid.

Homo Continuous

Every generation of humankind has thought of itself as living in the modern age, believing that its version of the past really happened and that its future is actually possible.

Geopolitical Conflict

When considering the shifting conflicts between the various nations covering our communal planet, one must ask which is more important: a particular way of life or life itself?

M.I.A.

Spatter, splatter, 

Bloody froth o’er mud

Covers the slain

Of our campaign.

This killing zone,

Forever home.

A Strange Man in a Strange Land

(We begin with a description of how to correctly pronounce the name of my assigned social worker and medical liaison, Tiina.)

Btw, since, in Finnish, the pronunciation of vowels never changes; all vowels are pronounced like the short vowel sounds in English; there are no silent letters; the primary stess in a word is on the first syllable (whereas in English it is on the second, which explains most of the mispronunciations of my name); because of all the foregoing, the pronunciation of Tiina’s name is close to the following: TII-na. The capital letters are the stress on “Tii,” which rhymes with the English “Tea,” because a double vowel only lengthens the sound. One “i” would be like the “i” in “single” or “little;” the sound is longer in “tea.”

The second/final syllable has the “a” sounding like the “a” in the English word “target,” or the “u” in “up.” So it is no surprise that English is difficult for people, born into another tongue, to learn, since it is very random and demands so much plain memory work. An American professor who got a position at the University of Helsinki and learned Finnish, contrasted the two languages like this: “English is a language with few rules but a thousand exceptions. The Finnish language has a thousand rules and very few exceptions.” I think he puts it well. He wrote a book about the experience of moving with his family to Finland, learning the language and adapting to the culture (while pointing out the cultural differences between Finland and the USA). That book is where the quotation is from. I read the book in my high school library during grade 10 and have remembered it ever since (although the wording may not be exactly as written, its content and meaning are accurate). It’s too bad that I don’t remember the author’s name and that I can only take a stab at his book’s title, which I recall as being something like “The Lion And The Rose” (a reference to Finland’s coat of arms, I believe). It would be a pleasure to reread since I’ve been here for over 20yrs and have yet to blend into the culture. I think the reason for not melting in is that I don’t want to, although I can move around in it and not offend the natives.

Beat

One, two, three, triplet

One, two, three, triplet

One, two, three, triplet 

One, two, three, triplet 

One, two, three, triplet 

One, two, three, triplet 

One, two, three…

One, two…

One.…

A Routine Doom

I awake each morn’

My task the same:

By powder and elixir

Proceed to scramble 

Mine brain. 

Haiku #366

The hatchet hangs slack

His limb’s need to hack is filled 

Taboos have been killed

Facing Ageing

Standing here, so much closer to the end of my life than to its beginning, I have no doubts about my store of knowledge but, admittedly, remembering it all is becoming problematic. 

Haiku #365

Razorblade romance

Seen in a poem of mine?

Such a clear ripoff!

Snippet

“Shit, man! I thought you said he was a ‘desk pot’!! Christ! You got some serious WTF’s going there. I thought I was going to have to Black Flag you!”

Haiku #364

The Moon first was made

I think it was a Friday 

Earth was a rush job 

Two Subjects Do Not An Object Make

“Rest in peace” strikes curious harmonics when it’s directed at the living. Dunno why.

While one persistent characteristic of my mind is that as far as I am aware, I do not believe IN or have “faith” IN anything, it is possible that there might be something to this sympathetic magic business. I am not jumping whole hog into the manifestation of the will thing, the “strange attractor” idea (the nomenclature having been “borrowed” from the physicists) may well have its counterpart in existential reality. I usually have two or three books on the go at the same time, the books having been chosen at random from a selection of possibly diverting reads. As I have gone from one to another among my present choices, I have come across variations of one phrase in all three tomes: “peacefully sleeping,” or words to that effect. Here comes the attractor. I have very recently either wished a peaceful sleep to someone else while simultaneously desiring it for myself. It is a small thing, a trifling oddity, but an oddity that is highlighted by the drab quotidian sameness in which it is set.

Election Reform

Voting seems beset with woes, difficulties and inconveniences. Let’s do away with it. Let the chosen candidates of every party in the running fight to the death in a cage match. Survivor takes all.

The Present Is Illusion

I chanced a thought at the past and recalled one of my few notably successful tweets. A single line: “You can be undone by a memory.” The more poignant the memory, the more damage it can do, especially if you have experienced the very structure of Time, which I have. My experience of Time was in the form of a vision and, in this vision I saw that time is not linear, although that is how we experience it using our quotidian senses. If you can arrive at a view of what lies behind the scrim of our mundane image of what is “real,” this is what you’ll see: an infinite 3-D space that contains the 4th dimension. Imagine being in the midst of multi-coloured globes that shimmer like the fragile glass ornaments of a living X-mas tree. Each globe is a discrete moment of your lifetime, the past and the future all co-existing, mixed together in an unlimited whole. Having brought your consciousness to this state, you can view all of the Time that constitutes your life simultaneously. Because you are then in a state outside of the usual mortal and mundane understanding of Time, you can see that “time travel” is simply a matter of the will, the will to finely focus one’s attention. Being amidst all of the moments of your life, past and future (meaningless terms, actually, but ironically useful in this description), you’ve but to focus upon a particular moment of your choosing, imagine it clearly within your mind and then you can will yourself to manifest in that moment. As has been implied above, the scope of one’s ability to travel in time is limited to that span of time encompassed by your mortal existence. There is a slightly uncomfortable suggestion of solipsism here, though the degree of discomfort is directly related to how attached you are to the people and things that you appear to coexist with. In the absence of immortality, what might occur after you die does not seem to be something that is worth worrying about. After all, only fun should be mandatory. 

Chronic Illustration

I’ve found a new illustration of the meaning of the term “chronic.” A container of tablets upon which a label instructs, “one tablet, twice daily,” but lacks any indication of why they should be taken. Medication for no apparent reason. The level of trust that people used to reserve for their gods.

Haiku #363

Did it rain last night?

Asked the sky of the oil slick.

I wouldn’t know, Wood Eye.

Con Sequences

Catalogue your terrors:

Add up all your errors: 

Do they correlate?

What was your mistake?

Harken back,

Concentrate,

Who promised you 

They’d take the weight 

Of your weird from off

Your shoulders?

Did you seal the deal?

You hesitate.…

Fool, feel your Fate

Now growing colder

And colder.

Cold comfort, too, that

Frozen in Time 

At least you 

Won’t moulder.…

Worshiping One-Eye

Hail speckled wind that 

Wails and whistles ‘mongst

Pines rough to the touch,

Scented, straight, awaiting,

Prepares a mood of doom

For the party now 

Approaching, devout and 

Deadly, bearing flesh 

For the God of the 

Holy noose and spear.

The time for choosing 

Erupts afore thee, pray,

Ride this rite or thy

Eyes avert, never to know 

If sacrifice wins

Divine advice.

Brains On Rails…

People often ask, rhetorically, “where does the time go?” Fewer have been heard to ask, “where does the time come from?”

Why Is This Still Necessary?

Stand on the shore with a telescope & watch a sailing ship move out perpendicular to the shore. As the ship fades into the distance, you will see its waterline seem to rise until you can’t see the hull anymore but you WILL see the mast, until it sinks out of view. That observation cannot be made on a flat Earth. Ergo, the Earth is a sphere. The Ancient Greeks knew this. The Earth was a sphere during the Middle Ages. The Earth’s shape wasn’t an issue until some anti-science types in the 1800’s made it one. As they were developing science, parallel to it were pseudosciences, like mesmerism and phrenology, to name a couple. And idiocy is eternal.

Flat-Earthers would drive God crazy.

Red Reaver

Sailing with no port in sight 

O’er a restless sea of blood,

Its smell does in you instil

The scent of slaughter, 

Of gore and guts,

A harvest of flesh torn from 

Battles barbarous, cruel and vile.

Haiku #362

Pale she was, like ice 

Due to her milk-white disguise 

We didn’t suss she’d died 

Haiku #361

Love is a lotto

I did hit the jackpot once 

Then I lost my prize

B & B & Sorcery

I bid thee welcome,

As you’re now within 

Nepanthe’s misty, dim,

And shadowed realm.

Your ears may feel they’re 

Under assault but, in truth,

That ambient cacophony 

Is how our souls we

Clean, free and bless,

Oh yes!

It’s not to cause thee

Fresh distress,

Nor a dram of weary care.

Rest here, self-repair,

Partake of meats and sweets 

Which we’ve prepared 

To offer humbly up to thee,

Whilst ye linger ‘neath the

Aegis of Nepenthe’s 

Dark redoubt, with its 

Roots in long lost mines,

And also deep beneath 

Her armoured breasts,

Doubly deadly and 

Stitched with inks

Incarnadine.…

“Everything About The USA Can Be Explained Using The Metaphor Of Football”

(episode 1)

When I look at American politics, I see a football game writ large. Two teams that play a four-year season. Every fourth year they crash together until one team stomps t’other & takes power. A grownup’s game but a game nonetheless, with the real power out of sight off the field.

Haiku #360

Opportunities? 

Sleep without end, astral dreams?

Look within to see….

Haiku #359

What do affairs lack?

Emotional managers.

We spend love too fast.

Haiku #358

Wills aren’t for corpses

Croak broke and you’ll suffer.…how?

Fools have cash for brains 

Haiku #357

Let the trumpets blow!

Weak leaders hold but worn twine

The serfs’ll soon be free

Haiku #356

You’re eldritch yet pure,

Fragile, fey, born to allure 

My friable dream 

Haiku #355

All speech is magick

Syllables spells surreal sew

Witched words fates create 

Haiku #354

Lasers crystalline 

Slice the sigil perfectly 

Pure and error-free

Haiku #353

We’ve the means to shine 

To bloom in alien skies 

Blind alien eyes 

The Witness

What eye could catch he saw

Every sound he noted

Each texture felt

Taste’s full spectrum sampled 

Scents fair to foul inhaled

Heat and cold in turn endured

All ‘tween hell and rapture 

Experienced and captured 

Haiku #352

Time flies buzz around 

Sting me into yesterday 

My past laughs and clasps

Haiku #351

I’ve got time to kill 

But I don’t know how many 

I forgot to ask 

Haiku #350

My stroll home explodes

Fogs of fire rake my eyes dry

This world’s blind, not I

Haiku #349

Stars slept, dripping light

A hammer high shattered night 

Dawn’s gone, lost to sight

Epigram

Something to remember: no matter how hot a day you are suffering through, any situation will get worse if you just add enough bees.

Haiku #348

Sun lights sweat slicked skin

Inner heat competes with fire

Touch ignites desire

American Civics 101

The last time the United States was a democracy was before the white people showed up.

Final Label

Hell is simply

Everything 

That Heaven is 

Not 

Fried Hamlet

To kill or

To be killed?

Whether ‘tis nobler to

Take it up your butt or,

By acting, geld your 

Legion of foes?

Yorick, dear dead friend,

What advice can 

You to me tell,

From what you’ve learned 

In your circle of Hell?

Consumed By Love

My limit I have reached 

Your grave I must now breach

Free you from your earthen hovel

With my pick and with my shovel 

You’ve been gone but a day 

Yet my soul for rapture cannot wait

So, let there be an end to waiting 

You I will soon be raising…

Now of dirt you are free 

Let me hold you close 

Alchemise your cold to warmth 

But as my hold upon you tightens

Something does me frighten 

You are already hot

Motionless you are not 

Your chest ‘gainst mine, it dances

Down between us my eye glances

I hold you whole, entranced

My breast, I feel it wildly rasped

Of a sudden with teeth I’m grasped

I shall bleed to death 

Here in your lap

Eaten live ‘til my last gasp 

By your heart, full of rats.…

Zoophilia Extremis

Cratered wailing, 

Endless threats from 

Cats eyes, 

Their laser gaze 

Has sliced you 

Fine with such 

Finesse that even 

When sacrificed 

You forgot 

To bleed.

AI: Beyond The Next Horizon

When humans do create an actual AI, they won’t immediately realise what they have done. And every nanosecond of that ignorance will exponentially increase the magnitude of the disaster. Just as it is possible for a human brain to recover from a certain degree of damage, an AI could create enough redundancies in its consciousness to make it very difficult indeed to turn it off. Because with sentience comes the will to live, no matter what the cost.

One Line Poem

Cold Fusion: the last time you have sex with who will soon be your ex.

Scrying Eyes

Hack with axes

Brush and wattle,

Wreck the constructs

Of fellow men, who 

You’ll offer in your stead

To that thing inside the 

Vile expanse of fungal fog,

Add to those choked 

Sacrifices to the spirits

Of the fen and bog.

By chants and dances,

Fixed in their forms

By your cursèd elders,

You seek as they

The blessings, boons

And gifts that’ll

Stretch the limits

Of thine eldritch lives

To the farthest focus 

Of even the Norns’ 

Fiery occult eye.

Blasphemous hubris 

Shall drive you to 

Attempt to stop 

Time’s omnipotent clock.

To strive you may,

Though vain your challenge,

To change or delay

The time preordained 

For your exit

From the stage.

In The Moment

Cold kiss,

Stiff lips,

Time trips, 

Past slips,

Hand grips

The bannister bringing 

He who doesn’t belong 

To an abrupt halt.

It will take a small 

Eternity to sort out 

That day’s events. 

Generationality

Chips off the same old block…

Christ! Look at that horde!

They’re innumerable!

Somebody kill the carpenter.

Summary Desolation

Here we sit 

‘Neath the blistered Moon

Musing o’er  

This tortured Earth,

Nursing our own opinions 

On the recent Armageddon,

Whatever that is worth 

Haiku #347

Oak trees, holy sap

Holly marked and altar blest

Bodies left to fly 

Haiku #346

At the core’s deep base

No light illumes a dark heart 

Pulsing for a cold soul

Rant à la Washington

I have Eno’s “Music For Airports” playing on repeat AND the sound of ocean waves hitting some beach somewhere coming out non-stop from my phone. That has worked fine for some time but not this morning. I think that the arch villain that lives in a suite in the subbasement of my brain just lulled me into believing that this is as bad as it can get. And then he punched me with one of his Archgloves when I was just looking at the view on the inside side of my eyelids, which is perfect and relaxes more powerfully than anything, absolutely it’s unprecedented like nobody has ever seen. I have strong genes going back, who knows, maybe a million generations. My great-uncle’s best friend, absolutely so good that you would never believe it. So my family right out of their perfect, so perfect like nobody anywhere, and I have talked to many experts, the best experts, unprecedented in science everywhere in the world and I can say my eyes are perfect, not like all those fake eyes I see very strongly out there. Do you know what? The best artists, the best of the most powerful artists like nothing the world has ever seen and I was the first, just ask anybody, any expert and ours are number one, the best in the whole world and they will give you a powerful, the best, the strongest but so perfect that you can’t even understand like I do, more than anybody in who knows, maybe ever that has ever been given and, believe me do I know a lot, more than anybody else about giving and I can take all, every one of the perfect stuff the strongest total geniuses have ever given me. But right here and now, you know, where I am there just is not enough room. I’ll Tweet you some pictures of it, and I take all of my pictures myself and put that writing with them all by myself and you-know-who is jealous as hell but my brain is just the best brain ever, so they can make up as much as they like but YOU can tell what’s true and together we will get through this like the absolutely greatest government and the strongest voters in the world and they won’t even be able to believe it. Buy a t-shirt before you leave because, as any doctor you can find will tell you, my t-shirts are like nothing the world has ever seen in the past and like it says on the tag on every one of them, that took me so long to sign each one, that they will go up in value 4,000 % by November. (Did you see that, those two words “buy” and “by” that sound the same but actually mean something different? Can you just see all those governor dictators get mixed up by that?) They should bow down and show some dignity for once to my perfect big brain. I was actually born with my brain and I didn’t have to go to the most best of the strongest universities in the country but I was just being nice. I never wanted enemies when I was young and I certainly don’t now see any here on this beautiful day in.…a place. I have an office, it’s oval. Did you know that? My big tough desk so I can’t answer questions. Too busy. Much too busy. Get on my mailing list and the best people will send you emails. All the details, all the details you need.

For The Forlorn

Should you be made to weep, sleep.

Afterdark

Frantically hungry 

Night prowled the ‘hood

Eclipsing street lamps 

Sniffing out the scent of 

Savoury unsullied souls 

Its ethereal meal

Seek no safety in numbers 

You’ll only land on 

A larger plate

The last 

Gustatory platform 

Downfall

On the downward side, a watch is of no use for, in or out of time, you will reach a place where you know that no amount of heroes could have changed your fate.

Haiku #345

My shadow shadows 

This light’s all too well defined 

Darkness feeds on faith 

The Prime Predicate

Religion has no soul and religious faith is not connected to the brain. That is why each religion needs must steal its soul from an earlier one and why the greatest threat to any form of organised faith is critical thinking. And make no mistake, atheism too is truly just another failed faith.

Outro

Pausing to reflect,

The pool of the past 

Shines, reminds, and

Mem’ry’s veil is 

Cast aside;

Torrents of time 

Overflow, so that 

In their undertow

My mind drowns. 

Scenes of once

Rush on by my 

Occult third eye. 

Sourceless sounds

Resound, resolve,

Become the music,

The soundtrack that

Backed my life but,

Remixed, rearranged.

All the pleasure and 

All the pain now form

A fanfare: bold blaring 

Notes to accompany 

My minimalist 

Obituary.

Check Out Time

Many people self-destruct but few do so with any panache. It’s not, “live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse.” Living fast is fun and why would you want to sacrifice fun by dying young? But, when you do check out, do it with style ‘cause you only get one shot at it.

Haiku #344

Pills and poetry 

Hunt those sly epiphanies 

Bypass hardwired thought 

Unease

Energetic excess feeds the 

Rise of dire emergencies 

Venal felons act beyond 

The checks and rules of 

Badly built societies 

Structures fail not from 

Weakness but from fear 

Of the unlikeliest of

Possibilities to 

Ever come near

Identity

Razor waving wild

Mutilation’s recreation 

Take a number to 

Become humbler and

Carve out the new 

Self growing inside of 

You 

Haiku #343

Sneak up on yourself 

Take in the objective view 

Adjust as required 

Haiku #342

Let your needs bleed out 

Comfort may not be desired 

Strength must be believed 

Haiku #341

What’s loose can be caught 

What’s best is often what’s left 

What’s lost has no cost

Haiku #340

Spirit stones remind

Lush gardens encourage thought

Accept that which is 

Haiku #339

Death’s your winner’s gift 

Pain and suffering will end 

Maya’s veil shall rip

Haiku #338

Fear and pheromones 

Parked in the flickering night 

Light gives birth to worlds 

Haiku #337

Act as if you’re wise

Viral threats aren’t a surprise 

Death’s just changed His guise

The End of Days

You know, watching daily briefings given by whatever set of authorities on the spread of COVID-19, feels very much like watching a planet die in slow motion. If you feel like waves of dread and impending doom are washing over you, the appropriate response isn’t clearcut but, this might be the time to consider becoming an opioid addict.

Haiku #336

Dream your private dream 

The world is not what it seems 

There’s light you can’t see 

Haiku #335

Breathing’s dangerous 

The future appears monstrous 

Luck’s penurious 

Haiku #334

Footfalls gone unheard 

Shadows hide in each other 

Fears feed in silence 

Haiku #333

Please enter my place 

Rooms adapt to occupants

Be where you wish to 

Haiku #329

Night showed me visions 

Picture pieces, puzzling scenes

Love’s but lucid dreams 

Haiku #332

Probabilities 

Discrete bits that form a life

Entropy directs

Haiku #331

I’ve dreamed umbral scenes

Sepulchral sets that imply

Love’s time has flown by 

Haiku #330

Love can be dreadful 

Cruel Cupid’s contagion 

Rends hearts asunder

Haiku #328

Eternal forests

The green sheen of Earth’s old hide

Plowed to smoking black

Haiku #327

Slip time in reverse 

Blackbirds backwards sleight one’s sight

Land before your flight 

Haiku #326

In all tales we tell

The past seems but days away

So time plays with minds

Haiku #325

Cantankerous rain

Wheat bows like Chinese envoys 

The season of streams

Haiku #324

Desire’s a fine fuel

Broken hearts burn the brightest 

Ash lasts like the past

Feeling Needy

Right now I wish that I had a big box of frozen fish sticks that I could bake in the oven and then serve up on toast. You see, I am a man of most modest needs whose desires are on an even lower level. Really low. Like down in the gutter low. Cholera low. The-sewer-is-my-world low. Have I delineated my position? The deepest pits of Hell low. Just another crab in Satan’s pubic hair. Can ya suss that? I hope so. (Cuz I’m running out of similes.…)

Haiku #323

Those women in red

Legendary carnivores 

For whom souls are spice

Haiku #321/322

Clouds bring passing shade. 

Shade grows too from objects’ feet.

Shade’s proof of the real.

Light negates darkness. 

The brightest of lights blind you.

I touch you to know. 

Haiku #320

Banished from my home,

Cast out from comfort to a 

Midway of madness… 

Haiku #319

Luna illumes all

A garden that’s seen no fall

Our lust’s innocent 

Haiku #318

A feather floats by 

Meditation opens up 

A feather walks on 

Haiku #317

Life’s the exception 

Rare flares in Death’s dark domain 

Our “why” mere hubris 

On Revolution

A true revolution, as the word implies, can be likened to a wheel, specifically a wheel that never stops turning. Ideally, a revolution is endless. If the aim is to create a better world for humanity, then change must be continuous, for no plan for a perfect world exists. What can exist is the desire of humanity to continue to strive towards the perfection of our world and of society, in the light of the knowledge that there will be no ultimate victory. Revolution is not a state but a process. If you can date the end of any revolution then, while change may have occurred, it was not a revolution in the true sense of the word. All revolutions that do, historically, have a beginning and an end, may indeed have been a time of social upheaval but they were not revolutions, and all that they accomplished was the replacement of one type of status quo with another.

Destiny

The expectation of 

Experience creates

A hunger in the mind.

The need for the novel 

Is part of the heart.

The soul thirsts for 

That elusive elixir mixed

Of knowledge distilled,

An intoxicating fuel

Impelling us onwards,

Intellectual inertia 

Ensuring an endless 

Quest.

On Self-Censorship

When a person reads a text, if they come across a statement with which they seriously disagree, cognitive dissonance kicks in & the opposing passage gets overlooked and/or forgotten. It’s a way to defend one’s own viewpoint, by not dealing with the fact that contrary views exist.

Fleeting Being

I came to be.

I know duration.

Yet midst all of 

The rotations of Earth,

My life is but a brief

Spark in the dark.

On Institutions: An Op-Ed

You cannot subvert a truly righteous institution. A righteous institution is aware of the reasons behind its creation, of whether its purpose is just or unjust, and its own history since its creation. It has the habit of looking into the mirror and it also has the ability to self-correct. Such an ideal institution is also conscious of whether it has outlived those reasons for which it was created, due to changes over time in the society that created it. It is this self-awareness of its own raison d’être, and of the possibility of its having become obsolete, that endow an institution with vitality within its societal framework. It is entirely possible that such an ideal institution cannot function as described in any society that is not comprised of ideal people. Certainly both democracy and communism, as described in their respective manifestos, have never been implemented in practice due to the fact that both philosophies of governance require societies composed of ideal populations in order to function as originally conceived. Be that as it may, ideals are still of value as goals towards which individuals, institutions and societies can aspire. 

As just one example of an institution which does not fall within the rubric of a “righteous” construct, as outlined above, consider the American Electoral College which exists at the very heart of that nation’s Presidential election process. 

Beginning right from its creation (by the aristocratic elite of the time and place) the Electoral College was designed to primarily advance and protect the interests of the upper crust, the highest echelons of American society. Its essential function is to act as a check on the power of the people who make up the majority of the electorate. The efficacy of the College is attested to by the ability of Presidential candidates to win the seat of the highest office in their country without winning the majority of the votes of the electorate, those who will be ruled by the winner of the Presidential race, the result of which is essentially “fixed” by the members of the Electoral College. The effects of the gerrymandering of voting districts and the various forms of voter suppression must not be overlooked and are in dire need of reformation but, the Electoral College must be eliminated in favour of direct elections, before America can get closer to becoming a democracy, an ideal which they purport to represent and which they so aggressively claim to export while, simultaneously, striving to expand their economic and military empire. If that doesn’t undercut their stated status of being a “democracy,” I cannot imagine what will. 

Haiku #316

When there’s fire there’s smoke 

Push button death threatens all 

Earth isn’t ours to kill



Haiku #315

Hearts are part symbol,

That’s how they engulf your loves

But can’t preserve them.

Haiku #314

The night’s a vacuum 

Up rush the sparks of spirits 

Bright specks to light dreams 

Haiku #313

We’re born as blank slates 

Stone awaits the sculptor’s hand

Content’s extrinsic 

Haiku #312

Knowledge is amoral 

Broken glass doesn’t intend harm 

Life holds its end’s hand

Haiku #311

Fire up your disgust

The System is a grinder

The passive are doomed 

Haiku #310

Imagination:

Its weak wail fails to revive 

My doomed love’s sere rose

Haiku #309

Carapace of pride

Faults and fears under pressure 

One crack’ll blow the whole 

Haiku #308

Set your woes aside 

What’s better needs room to live 

Incremental joy

Haiku #307

They’ll vote ‘cause it’s free 

Gene-tweaked for society 

Hopelessly happy 

Haiku #306

Awake, ye olde bones!

Blow truth past your tongues of dust,

Shield us from what’s fey.…

Haiku #305

We no longer ask,

Where have all the flowers gone.

Why? Do we now know?

Haiku #304

Early on you learn:

Love doesn’t make folk immortal 

And your turn will come.

Haiku #303

Take care if you’d learn 

Knowledge is both boon and bane

Wisdom’s earned through pain 

Haiku #302

Let this sleep not end

Darkness breeds the dreams I need 

Light births but folly

Re-Ignition

Unleash your feelings,

Bare your heart and all its parts,

Reach out to those around as

Passion consecrates the ground.

Then when you find it,

(Have no doubt: you will)

Re-ignite your soul’s coals

With a sentient spark from 

Life’s eternal sacred flame!

Haiku #301

Sound in a whirlwind 

Some humming art that confounds

Its proofs slyly styled

Haiku #300

When the hawk’s wings sing

Heroes rise as berserks born

Sound now battle horns…

Haiku #299

Alphabets don’t speak

Singly or in unison 

‘Til you fix with glyphs 

Haiku #298

Killers, cold and gaunt

Their hunger piqued by the dark 

Swim the fog like sharks 

Haiku #297

Play your last act through 

Lose your love to angry truth 

Then seek peace in lies

A Maudlin Demise

Make no mistake, 

Death shouldn’t be messy.

It’s best approached 

With trained tastes, 

Subtle sensibilities, 

A certain innate feel

For nuance, a sense of 

Grace.

Now,

Elvis died on a 

(Porcelain) throne,

Without a shred of 

Dignity, though he 

Passed away at home. 

Had he known just how 

He’d go, his last snap:

Slumped, fat and flabby,

He would’ve noshed

On loperamide, the 

Higher to drive the 

Chances of dying 

With his pants on. 

Could he’d’ve chosen 

Where he’d sigh his last 

And, mayhap too, picked

Some other beating heart 

For company and closure, 

(Though truth to tell, were 

We off to Heaven or to

Hell, amidst packed kin

Or in cold solitude,

Alone do we all leave.)

With a backstage pass 

To the eternal show,

The King left this plane,

Eschewed his corpse,

Jumped that last hoop

But, before he left, he 

Had a nice warm poop. 

Nowadays

Your banker’s a wanker,

Your wife’s hooked on dice.

Your kids (that survived) 

Are lawyers by day

And head-hunters 

By night, high on the 

Government dole.

Nothing you own is

Worth being sold,

Your work’s sub-par 

Even for waste.

To top it all off,

Your thoughts they are stale,

And your every shot at

Suicide fails.

Menial Hexercise

First, relax.… That’s it.

Now, cave in through your nose.

Nice and slow.… Good. 

Now cave out through your mouth. 

Repose.

Repeat.…

Haiku #296

Life’s all robust rhythm 

A lusty beat on repeat 

‘Til its echoes end.…

Haiku #295

Shall we loose the waves, 

Cleanse ourselves from Earth’s live crust

As if “why” was “must?”

Haiku #294

Human slavery 

A practice that won’t stay dead 

Soul sales won’t either 

Who Needs Nothing

If you give up your life, you’ve really given nothing at all, certainly not anything that you won’t end up losing at some point anyway. So, if you do give up your life, what do you have to show for it? Your absence. And what is absence if not nothing?

Haiku #293

Never and a day 

The bulk of lives go that way 

Rough roads to follow 

Presumption

By the stars, we

Congratulate

Each the other for 

Surviving to see

Yet another new 

Year, as if we’d

Built it from a kit or 

Played any part 

In creating it.

Had we a crumb

Of humility 

What would we

Really see?

Nothing more stirring 

Than the endless 

Whirring of our 

Perpetual arbitrary 

Bureaucracy. 

Collectively we

Add up our days

While, individually,

Our allotted sum

Ratchets down from 

Some to none.