The Adventure - Excerpt from Memoir - Caravan of Dreams

Reading from my latest collection of poetry - Daydreams and Other Lapses

Ode to the World Eaters

Violent paroxysms

evoked from impossible

expectations enveloped by

mammoth greed in all its

voluptuous folly.

 

Within the torrid dreams of

empire and

naked individuality,

where humanity is forsaken,

a dimensionless future awaits

of hydrocarbon sludge and

greenhouse gases

erupting from the nightmare of

pointless acquisition.

 

Within the scope of such a future

victory of the dark emotions

forged at the dawning of

conscious life

will be confirmed at last

forever obliterating any chance

of reclamation.

 

Praise be the sublime

stupidity of the human race and the

panoply of gods used to forge

the significance of such a

downward spiral.

 

War

Strident pronouncements from the

pulpit of state

proclaiming superiority,

demanding loyalty,

stirring the shimmering

cauldron of fear,

tsunami of emotions

assaulting the senses.

War grinds on

poking desperate holes in

the fabric of reason.

Humans stand astride

the abyss of the damned

and plunge without reluctance

into the chaos of their own making.

War shreds humanity

under the staggering weight

of bountiful corpses

left bloodless,

discharged from the living

in a torrent of metal and fire.

Cycles of endless violence and

retribution,

falling upon

sharpened spikes

of hatred

ignorance

fear.

War glorifies pitiful death

upon the altar of

the unrelenting darkness.

I mourn for all the pointless killing,

for the gravestones piled high upon

the beleaguered hearts of all the mothers

who have wept over the ashes

of their vanquished children.

Wars' hollow victories

give succor to the void

and offer the promise

of future grief upon the bones of

fractured peace.

I mourn for needless suffering,

for the compendium of horrors,

for the blood and sinews of the

armies of victims who

fall to the earth so

thoroughly shattered.

War is carnage

unredeemed by the rhetoric of

shallow righteousness or

the politics of punishment

and retribution.

I long for a time when peace is

no longer a sentiment

reserved for the prophets,

not just a word used on

special occasions.

I long for a time when peace is

not simply a sweet turn of phrase

laced within the rhetoric of

the politics of deception,

but a way of being

within the substance of humanity.

Illness

 

Illness stalks

relentless desperado

unraveling sanguine dreams

disconnecting hope

from illusion.

 

Pandora's box of maladies

hidden in the attic

beneath the pile of

old photographs and faded momentoes

discovered and opened by

mischievous fortune.

 

Within life's unruly matrix

suffering is the host

humans despise yet

whose company is expected.

 

Disease has laid relentless siege

upon my family,

leaves me frustrated

i possess no power to

deter its blinding course or

avert its chaotic fervor.

 

Illness stalks,

indeed it must

allowing biology to pursue

its cyclic nature and

build anew from fallen timbers.

Disease has laid relentless siege

upon my family,

leaves me frustrated

i possess no power to

deter its blinding course or

avert its chaotic fervor.

 

Illness stalks,

indeed it must

allowing biology to pursue

its cyclic nature and

build anew from fallen timbers.

Curious Obsession

We dance by the window

shadows on the wall,

glance upward

at the wonder of it all.

 

Existence may have meaning,

desire its reward,

tomorrow may bring solace or

escape from blinding repetition,

yet i still choose to

capture fleeting moments with the

timbre and rhythm

that only words convey.

 

Consider it a sign

of childish vanity or

unashamed idleness

to be so possessed by

what is barely palpable,

lacking substance,

devoid of obvious purpose.

 

It is a measure of my weakness,

and my strength

a curious obsession.

Welcome to the Age of Indifference

    Oil extracted from the ground

in prodigious amounts

to feed the hunger of humans in the

age of the irascible machine.

 

From the ancient carbon stores,

many things are fashioned,

gasoline runs the engines

designed to foster and prolong convenience,

to feed the insatiable progress machine.

 

From the fuel that was earth's bounty,

wondrous polymers are constructed,

molded in myriad forms to

shape our insatiable indulgence.

 

From wild and exuberant beginnings,

the creatures that call themselves human

have created an elaborate reality

that has removed them so completely

from their origins that

the future is dying.

 

Magnificent creatures that

remind us of the wildness of the world

we once had,

disappearing from earth's diminished bounty.

 

Polar Bears drowning

ice no longer able to

sustain them.

 

Tigers and Rhinos and Elephants

slaughtered to near extinction

to satisfy ancient superstitions and

feed the endless lure of profit.

 

Zoos destined to be their

final habitat.

 

The insatiable human penchant

for order and dominion

wrecks havoc upon this hapless planet.

 

Once wholesome air

now populated with

noxious chemicals

too numerous to catalog

turn lungs into black parchment and

suffer the children.

 

Water is no longer considered sacred

squandered by abuse,

bottled water now the norm
fresh water no longer trusted,

fire retardant resident in

mother's milk.

 

Oceans, pity the oceans

the fate of coral, uncertain,

denizens of the ocean depths

depleted by the extravagance

of human folly.

 

Humans, an unfinished species

seem incapable of learning

from a history of profound mistakes,

too inured to the machinations of

the lower brain,

too bridled by emotions,

too wedded to the

shallow dimensions of self.

 

What does the future hold for

creatures so immersed in

paths of self-deceit and

mindless destruction.

 

What gruesome future

will unfold if

we do not take hold of the present and

transform it to something

hopeful and transcendent.