20180930.0430

I was sitting where I should have been
And happened to overhear--
The door was open,
And they were not speaking in hushed tones--
Them talking about their disappointment
That it had taken so long
To get to a place where an accusation
Might
Be taken seriously
Only to have the efforts made as nothing
Because some few thought
Someone should not
Have a particular job.

Ever does the weed
That Stupid God would seed
Emerge
And in every place.

20180929.0430

Her, I believe,
And her,
And her, as well,
Because I have been gripped by Stupid God,
Hand working up and down,
And by its pumping pulling out
What I have been taught is the end
To which I am made.

I did not say my teachers were good.

But I know that in being handled so,
I have been directed strangely,
And I have looked beside me more than once
To see other hands working
Pumping and pulling and producing
As crusting stains upon the floor
What otherwise might be directed
To fuller and more wholesome pleasures
That others might also enjoy.

But they are not,
Not often enough,
And the stains left behind
Are too often indelible.
A rug might cover them,
Perhaps a tattered orange one,
But they remain in place,
And likely cannot be cleaned.

And for my part in making such stains,
In consenting to having such hands working on me as I have had
And working with them, in turn,
I apologize.

Such words are feeble, indeed.
I do not expect forgiveness,
But I know that I’ve done wrong,
And that many others have does not excuse me.

It does tell me, though,
That I should believe her,
And her,
And also her,
And I do.

20180928.0430

It certain is some warmed themselves on flame
That burned ‘mid fiddling and the victims blamed
For cold they did not feel but had to name,
So crushed were they by power of Stupid God.
They, born under and broken by the rod
Its avatars did wield, did need no prod
To spread the mirksome gospel it would speak,
The words thus said their breaths making to reek.
By hour, by month, by day, by year, by week,
Their folly spread far faster than the flame
And sought on those unlike them to cast blame
For failure they’d not have themselves defame--
And now, as then, do many thusly preach,
Heeding not what thinking may well teach.

20180927.0430

They say that Nero fiddled while Rome burned,
The Cæsar celebrating how it turned
Out when he’d gotten what he had not earned,
And something like that seems now to be true.
Yet who the fiddler hear seem not to rue
The damage that the fiddler seeks to do
In playing out of key and out of time,
But gladly dance as if the tune’s a prime
Song called for, rather than an aural crime.
Around them, as they dance, much falls to waste
And ruin, and it falls with no small haste
To offer all who would seek it a taste
Of what will come when Stupid God, supreme,
Stands over all, as does now likely seem.

20180926.0430

That I might run aground is no surprise;
I find I often misdirect my eyes
And look at things that I would otherwise
Ignore, distracting me from what I ought
To do. It is not how I have been taught,
Although my daily life with it is fraught,
And even as I want to start to write,
I find myself consumed by foolish trite
Distractions. Soon enough, I lose the light
I had been hoping for as guide to set
My words in rhyming lines and tight--and yet,
Though I well know I all too little get
From doing so, I cannot help but do
As I am doing, carrying it through.

20180925.0430

It’s true: I do not work in verse alone,
But other skills I use and seek to hone
To keep as many from falling down prone
Before the feet of Stupid God as can.
But, even as my verse may well not scan,
I have not often ended as I’ve planned,
And such skills as I might well seek to wield
Have not the Stupid God compelled to yield.
Those skills that do not range too far afield
From what might be thought to have good effect--
They have not done as some might well expect,
And in their application left me wrecked.
Repairs are underway, as my ship’s not.
Perhaps to run aground is my life’s lot.

20180924.0430

I know not why I little songs still sing
When I do fear they do no little thing,
Nor anything at all. No joy they bring
In making them. No benefit they bear
In being read, no notion that they care
Who them do see of which I am aware.
I still press on, though; I’ve no other way,
And even if few care what I might say,
And even if I hate myself for play
When so much work does e’er remain to do,
And time not at it is time I soon rue,
I think I must this project carry through
Of writing verse in Stupid God’s despite--
I’ve nothing else with which to make wrong right.

20180923.0430

I look out on the world and feel despair;
The Stupid God does spread, and few do care,
And of them, fewer still will think to dare
To work against the spread--and I’m not one.
I end before I even have begun
To weave a net to catch it, or to have spun
A thread from which a rope might yet be made
To make a net; I see how it is frayed
Before I start, and I am grown afraid
That, should I cast a net of little worth--
Of value, I hold my works in a dearth--
I should be quickly brought hard down to earth,
Where I have beaten been too oft before;
I think not I could endure it much more.

20180922.0430

I know I erred. What irks me is not that,
But rather when those who have idly sat
And watched my struggle, folly to combat,
Say that I was a fool to take my path.
Perhaps I ought to feel Fortuna’s wrath
Because I did not much better math
When setting out, a child although I was--
But youth should be for folly no good cause.
Credulity should give any age pause,
And I was credulous, should not have been,
And would not, had I it to do again;
Perhaps I would thus find a better end.
But Stupid God would doubtless find a way
To take in toll what few would gladly pay.

20180921.0430

More fool was I to go without my eyes
Full open and to find a rude surprise
Than would have been the case were I more wise,
But fool I was, and trusted others’ word.
I put my faith in what I from them heard;
What they said may as well have been a turd,
For years and pains have flushed that hope away
That I once held from hearing what they’d say
In times now gone, when I in light of day
Did find myself and throve. Now that is gone,
And I know well that I do not belong
Where I had hoped once to find myself strong.
Such was the work of Stupid God on me,
And it on others I too often see.

20180920.0430

I’ve done the bit in which I try again,
Repeating what I’ve done with no clear end,
And it has done me little good. But when
I left off doing, I felt no ease of heart;
I felt compelled to play the martyr’s part,
And soon enough, I tried, again, to start
To do as I had done before. But I
Did find no greater peace of heart thereby,
But fared the worse for being now less spry,
And so more hurt, and slower, too, to heal,
And slower to ignore how I do feel
When treated as if what I’ve done’s not real.
But Stupid God has ordered it be so,
And so it is in every place I go.

20180919.0430

Too like the one-eyed one in his last days,
When ‘gainst the serpent he himself arrays
And charges forth, ‘mong somber-most displays,
I toil on to fight the Stupid God.
I strike against it with too small a rod
To injure it--or even it to prod--
And feel its mass reach out, encircle me,
And no way out remains through which to flee.
I know not what results thereof will be,
But I have my suspicions; none are good,
And I have not the thought they ever would
Be so, nor expectation that they could.
If spear that fails not fails in such a fight,
How much more failure when I lack such might?

20180918.0430

If, by my verse I can put forth a call
To doff malaise, off apathetic pall,
And the advance of Stupid God to stall,
Then I’ll have done a part, but not enough.
Already have they started them to stuff
And garnish and from them peace to slough,
As Gorlois did ere e’er was Arthur made
And Igraine had her loving trust betrayed;
They have much stock for fighting well in-laid,
And words alone will not them overthrow,
And that they won’t, the tyrants well do know.
They see themselves in no mere Jericho;
In truth, no god will come to shake the walls
In which the Stupid God has too-full halls.

20180917.0430

I well deserve to be where I now stand,
To watch as Stupid God compels the land
And sea and sky to bend to the command
Of small-hand orange-face’s teeming horde
Who rage as bidden for no real reward.
I cower, bolt doors, and my windows board
As if against a storm I cannot fight.
There is no candle that can give a light
Sufficient to illumine the whole night,
And I have but a candle. Folly now
Does come forth once again in force; somehow
I had thought it hindered. Far too proud
Was I in thinking I could use my voice
To fight against it--yet I have no choice.

20180916.0430

That I my limits know is no great grace,
The less so, given that which I now face,
As do all with whom I share common place.
Instead, they bid me stand off to the side,
To watch aground while others take a ride,
Exulting while I seek my shame to hide
At feeling fear and knowing I dare not,
At having learned too late what I was taught
Of being tightly by my thinking caught
And knowing what will come to me if I
Might stretch out arms and so attempt to fly,
Rising from the ground to touch the sky.
I cannot throw myself at ground and miss;
Too oft my studies bluntly showed me this.

20180915.0430

I know I will be called upon to make
Things right that others will, ofttimes, forsake,
And I know it will fall to me to take
Up tool or weapon, that task to address.
Already I feel how its weight does press
On me and seek thence further to progress,
And I know I do not suffice to bear
That weight with what it merits for its care;
The strength to do so has been with me ne’er,
As how I act when faced with challenge shows.
I am not one who, beaten back, arose
Again to vanquish they who once opposed,
But by the other fighter was laid out.
Much cause have I my worthiness to doubt.

20180914.0430

Yet to complain does not, of course, suffice,
And doing so without solution’s ice
With which to freeze the problem, neat and nice,
But whining is, and rightly it’s ignored--
Yet no solution seems fit for the board
And presentation at which it, adored,
May by the masses be greatly extolled.
I thus can only do what I have told
And call out for attention from the bold
Who, needing others’ words to guide each deed,
Perhaps my hymnal may yet come to heed
And act in such a way as leaves us freed
From Stupid God for the space of a breath--
Though no force can lead that one to its death.

20180913.0430

So I write, and in verse, I complain,
Singing once again the sad refrain
To which I'm moved through suffering the pain
Of seeing those who think that they well see
But yet see not, as I know's said of me,
Although full far apart are they and we
Who know that we know not, as I well know.
While I and those who are like me will go
Into our thoughts, the others still will crow
That they have answers many others seek
Who think in thinking we make ourselves weak
And who would never want to be called meek,
And they who answer that distorted call
May well lead to the ruin of us all.

20180912.0430

Many Ganymede will gladly play

For Stupid God an hour, or a day,

Or weeks, or years, and some, no doubt, will say

That they, by doing so, have grown more great

Than any who against them would debate,

And that they've done so by exploiting fate,

Accepting what, for them, is proper place,

As show by their skin color, shape of face,

And what they pack in pants. It's a disgrace

That any would so think, and yet, they do

Despite words spoken 'til faces are blue;

No light of reason seem e'er to break through

The damned fool walls they've built of their minds' stone,

Yet their peril can't be left alone.

20180911.0430

Such days as these, when horrors have been done,
And which have led to wars that, once begun,
Seem to have no end, to ever run,
Make ditches look far better than they might.
The Stupid God does thrive on people's fright
And withers when it is exposed to light
Of knowledge. Thus it throws its shadows up
And on the darkness following does sup,
Drinking fear from ever-growing cup.
It falls on us to pour it no more drink,
To close its tap--and if we will but think,
Instead of letting us into fear sink,
We can that tap close. We can stint the flow
That now to Stupid God does swiftly go.

20180910.0430

No wonder, then, that many labor much
To fight against the spread of books and such
Other things as well the mind might touch,
And, in so touching, grow and take in more
Of facts and figures, lit'rature and lore,
Philosophy and history, and pour
Out goodness rendered in words on a screen,
Or writ in ink, or said with voices keen.
They struggle to know what such words may mean.
They scorn to hear, or cannot stand, the sound
That minds, in growing, trumpet all around,
And rather than enjoying the astound,
They rail against what might well them enrich,
Prefer instead to cower in their ditch.

20180909.0430

Yet though the road has been both long and rough,
The thinking folk have traveled it enough
That quickly do their soles and souls grow tough--
Or so it is when they act as they ought.
Unfortunately, it cannot be thought
That all such folk act as they have been taught;
The Stupid God can touch in any place,
And some who study seek to ruin the pace
That others set, which is no small disgrace.
Yet still more will that seeking seek to fight
And drag such darkness into cleansing light
Where it is made to wither in the sight
Of those who know well how they ought to look,
Who learn it most in pages of their books.

20180908.0430

It courage takes to keep a thinking mind.
It courage takes to keep the heart still kind.
It courage takes to endure while maligned,
And oft-maligned are thinking people now
Who, in their thinking, promise to show how
The world might well a better way allow.
Of course, such is as it has always been,
That just as soon as something will begin
To make things better, others will again
Arise and try to make all matters worse.
Such may well be the chief and vilest curse
That ever an ill-speaker did rehearse.
No easy task will be to break such spell
As any who attempt it surely tell.

20180907.0430

The Stupid God resides in fears like those
And uses them to strangle many foes
Who otherwise might well threats to it pose,
For thinking is no easy thing in fear.
It hides from view what otherwise is clear
And oft occludes all that which is held dear,
And so the small-hand orange face fear spreads,
Hoping thus to thwart the thinking heads.
A person fearful reason often sheds,
And on such truths do ill-workers rely;
They are effective, as few will deny,
And so, for ill, they're always worth a try,
But courage, too, is well worth the attempt,
Although away from it many things tempt.

20180906.0430

It seems that, in the weekly work I do
Of teaching students what I know is true,
I have to labor too much to undo
The work that others did badly before.
If they were hit by screeching sirens' score
Or were themselves part of that singing corps,
It little matters 'gainst the ill effect
That has minds of students often wrecked.
In truth, I have long since come to expect
That those who think to teach the onus bear
Of Stupid God's attention unaware;
The other option is they do not care.
The thought that that might be does greatly scare.

20180905.0430

I hope that while I listen, thus enthralled,
That others will by better things be called
And, seeing me, they will soon grow appalled
And work to stop my ears with better things.
Willingness to help right thinking brings,
As harmony a chorus better sings
Than many voices braying on one strain,
Repeating only one simple refrain.
Yet many prefer such, since it is plain,
And hearing many voices effort takes,
Even though it better list'ning makes,
The sullen mass too quickly it forsakes.
I hope, at least, that I may listen well
And hear what harmonies can, thinking, tell.

20180904.0430

Of such sort is the song such sirens sing
That, tone-deaf though I am, my ears still ring
Of those strains Stupid God's chorus would bring
From throat to air; I can that tune sing well.
In my dull ears, it sounds a strident knell
As it the deeds of Stupid God does tell,
And in the words that it would use elides
The folly unthought following e'er hides.
Abuse and many other things besides
Are kept from view when people will not look
At what surrounds them or within a book--
And such rewards the ever-greedy crook.
I hear, and while I listen, I am robbed,
Unable to hear others until mobbed.

20180903.0430

It seems that many hear the siren call
Of Stupid God, or most, or nearly all,
And many gladly become that one's thrall.
Of pernicious kind is that foul song,
And broadcast openly for far too long,
To fill the ears of the unwitting throng
That takes it now for basic background beat
Upon which melodies may find a seat.
To listen to them is no tasty treat,
Although too many have to it become
Accustomed, grown on it more drunk than rum
Imbibed can make a person, their thoughts gummed.
Sometimes, I feel my own thoughts thus to stick;
Sometimes, I fall before that siren's trick.

20180902.0430

Too much, I feel the Stupid God in me,
Though I do strive to never let it be
The thing about me many people see.
But even though with all I have I fight,
Through me, the Stupid God still sees the light
Of day, and that of knowledge, that of right,
And I can feel it grow within my heart,
Feel it metastasize to other parts
Of me. It hurts. I know no healer's art
That offers refuge from the pain thus felt,
Trump-heavy hand from evil dealer dealt.
No picked-up bootstrap, nor either tightened belt
Suffices to provide me what I need
My warrior 'gainst the Stupid God to feed.

20180901.0430

It's true that finding knowledge brings no ease,
But makes one able to see the disease
That's spread by Stupid God and works to please
All they who would in ignorance remain.
Such people care not one whit for the pain
They give to others, so long as they gain
In lucre and the things that lucre buys,
Such purchases as are Stupid God's guise.
Upon unwary shoppers part relies
Of plans to further Stupid God's design,
Of plans to mind's advancement undermine--
And all the while do many think it fine.
But I, at least, still Stupid God resist,
Though I well know it always will exist.