20201110.0430

Once again in his prime
For the eighteenth time, in fact
Having run with us the solar circuit
He puts off Holst's Saturnian claim just a bit longer
Fitting enough for a man whose tool is not the sickle
And whose younger son regards him more kindly than that
Emulating him in ways his elder did not
He has more laps to run
And we look forward to him continuing on the track
Glad of his company still
Eager for more

20201109.0430

Do they think I breathe
With deep-sea diver sounds?
I rarely sit on a park bench
And the flowers' bloom is no madness in the spring
Yet I know that I must mind my eyes
Because it is not my intent that matters
But the effect that others feel
And I know from experience
I need not touch to repulse

20201108.0430

The newer singer sings
Somewhere there is
A place where all the things that live and breathe
Exist in harmony
But I have known
Harmony does not exist without separation
And too much closeness breeds dissonance
To which listening is productive
The tensions making new ideas
But too few are willing to be good audiences
For that sort of song
Unequal even to the attempt
Let alone the challenge itself

20201107.0430

It was a hopeful strain that
People everywhere
Have seen the light in what they found
But the singer then did not see
The light was from consuming flame
And it is not dust in the wind
But ash that blows
Smoke-sucked scraps all that remain
Dancing in the lonely wind

20201106.0430

Knowledge and reason change like the season
A jester's promenade
Prophetic lines from a song decades old
A pinnacle of achievement
Except not even so much dignity still attaches itself thereto
For a jester has a purpose
And the challenge to tight-held notions
And the words of the mighty
No longer find acceptance even in such abject guise

20201105.0430

They start so young
Twenty minutes late to class
And sad their teacher turns them back
But at least Mommy is not arguing
Yet

20201104.0430

I am going down the staircases again
To wit
But now I am stopped upon this one
Uncertain I should take another step
Or start back up

20201103.0430

I don't have a poem today. There is no need. Instead, I have this to say:

If you haven't, and you're eligible, VOTE.

What passes for regularity here will resume tomorrow. I hope.

20201102.0430

The shrapnel wounds became tattoos
Recovery and acceptance of the sacrifices made
But they read them instead as covering in shame
Badges they would never want to bear

20201101.0430

As the day draws near that many dread
As making to snap the remaining thread
By which that hangs that is now near to dead
And never was as hearty or as hale
As held the myth that for long did prevail
Because they lifted it with great travail
Who wanted to believe it, terror grows
From sources that the Stupid God well knows
Inasmuch as knowing acts in its repose
And it convulses, squamous, eldritch, foul,
Within the multitudes that are its cowl,
Puppets shaken hard upon its dowel
And joying in the rod applied behind,
Thinking its abuse is acting kind.