Thursday, September 8, 2016

To Our Magnificent Planet


To Our Magnificent Planet

I lift up this glass of seasoned wine
in homage
to this magnificent orb
on whose fragile surface we complete
our momentary lives.

I inhale this air
though tainted with
humanity’s disastrous discharge.

I sing this song in tribute
to your grand indifference to
our fate as
we plunge into a future
woven by our collective abuse.

Illustrious planet
third daughter within
the sun’s embrace
will endure our
reckless indulgence and
thrive beyond the reach of
human hands.

I offer up this salutation to all
earthly beings
to those who will perish
those who will persist
and those who will prosper
beyond the detritus of human endeavor.

To our magnificent home
may you remain as witness
to the distant cosmic future
though humans long extinct.

I lift up this drink
in homage,
may this bountiful earth
continue in its transits
through the icy firmament
until the sun turns off its
abiding light.

Monday, August 15, 2016

The Dance

Thrust into full light
expelled from the ancient deep
from the fluid sea
into the vaulting air,
incessant gravity
cacophony of sounds
all foreign
dispatched from the comfort of
maternal rhythms.

Dance so begun
continues
under open skies,
frigid and balmy,
vagaries of storm and wind
marooned forever on the ancient planet.

Dance of morning
dance of night
of sunlight,
of moonscapes,
of dreams.

Into the shimmering vortex
untamed,
unpredictable.

Impaled on time’s
illustrious arrow,
dancers convene
within the matrix of the
theatre of the living.

Dancing to the music of the present
within the shadows caste from
past remembrances
into whatever future awaits.

The dance ephemeral
the time brief,
yet the circle of the dance
embraces all.

Monday, August 8, 2016

Welcome Augustus



Welcome Augustus

Welcome Augustus to
planet earth and
the human theater
may you have a grand adventure,
may you grow up within
your parents’ and sister’s loving hands,
may your life unfold
with grace and adventure
and a boundless thirst for living,
may you see the beauty that surrounds you
and discover the wondrous nature of being.

Welcome Augustus to this exotic adventure
called life.

Friday, July 15, 2016

Like the Weeds



Like the Weeds

Like the weeds that
dance within the embrace of
summer breezes.

Tree frogs that
remain hidden in plain site
within the scope of vigilant predators.

Great white egret
in magnificent flight
at water’s edge.

Leopard in his tree
feasting upon his latest kill.

Termite queen
immobilized by an abdomen
filled with the promise of
future generations.

Humans move along
wondrous planet earth
finite, mortal and enfeebled by time
yet filled with a disconcerting
sense of entitlement.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Juxtapositions

Moon dances in the evening sky
breezes stir the myriad blossoms
trees flick branches
at passing birds in splendid flight
summer day is awaiting its
canopy of darkness.

This wondrous earth
tentacles of life invading
every rock,
every minuscule pool of water,
every bit of dirt,
even scalding desert sand is not immune
to life’s entreaty.

Yet, in spite of this
incessant beauty,
earth is sorely plagued by
endless human folly.

Blood is drawn from shattered bodies
limbs are splintered and made useless
skulls crushed from the weight
of war’s endeavor,
mothers divorced from their children
taken by the sharpened rapier or
blunted stone,
husbands denied their wives’ embrace
separated by death’s dominion.

Wondrous beauty of this planet
deadened in the eyes of humans
bereft of love and
fashioned into mindless warriors
wedded to the darkness of
futile hatred,
subservient to absurd notions
blinded by vacant and moribund ideas.

What will become of our earthly home
when the air grows fowl from
the pyre of our collective madness.

What will become of our fathomless oceans
when finally bereft of the living.

What will become of our sanguine dreams
when the ominous clouds of our own making
overshadow all the sweetness we might
otherwise envision.

Moon dances in the evening sky
breezes stir the myriad blossoms
trees flick branches
at passing birds in splendid flight
summer day is awaiting its
canopy of darkness.

Sunday, April 10, 2016

To the Illusory World We So Adeptly Created


I live in a world
with its codified rules
its expectations neatly packaged
orchestrated songs whose melodies
i was taught to dance to
a proud product of social engineering.

Cities already built
wars already fought
with the foundation already in place
for those conflagrations destined to come.

I could be a soldier if necessity demands
expected to be a patriot always
inequality natural
bigotry acceptable under the right conditions
poverty always a possibility.

Taught to be subject to the whims of economics
instructed in the insatiable laws of commerce
always a consumer
forever a commodity.

Instructed in the many forms
endless nuances of the trivial
swimming in that endless polystyrene sea
where conformity abounds
exotic nature neatly packaged in
colorful and inviting travel brochures.

Love is tolerated within limits
while the powerful polish their swords
with the fire of hate in the
belly of oblivion.

Unhinged from the breath
blinded of the ability to see
divorced from the power of nature and
the very root of our beginnings.

Deluded into believing in this
Insanity.

Branded with the conviction that

This
Is
All
There
Is.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Ageing


Ageing

No amount of ointment
adeptly applied
or
ancient remedies
buried in an artifact
from the ancient past
will stop
time’s relentless forward motion.

No obscure and ingenious formulation
assembled by a
team of brilliant chemists with a
penchant for innovation
will forestall mortality’s reach.

Molecular biologists and wily botanists
may conspire to unravel
the elusive signature of senescent genes
as they must
yet
ultimately someone will note their noble efforts
when their obituaries are finally written.

Along the inexorable continuum of
life’s journey,
the mind may seem less alert,
the body less able to
exercise its powers in
the arenas of art and love and industry.

No amount of artful dodging
intricate paraphernalia,
ludicrous camouflage,
or absurd denial
will keep us from our
ultimate and insistent dissolution
into artful and chaotic oblivion.

For this
                        we should be thankful
for this escape
from a world so plagued
by human endeavor and the

suffering it engenders.