20190228.0430

Perhaps in Stupid God’s advance
It’s seen that fighting has no chance
If it’s done by those like me.
Fearful, hiding, I don’t see
A way away from how things stand--
Yet better things do they demand
Who have lost to folly yet,
And I esteem those I have met
Who fight the fight from which I flee.
I know I will never be
Such as they are, to such effect
As can the Stupid God reject
When, with hateful pantheon
And hordes beside, it marches on
Its goals and puts them to the siege,
Making more call it their liege
As it it crowns with world’s delight
And torments others with the sight
Of things that might have once been good
Be put to purpose understood
As ruin and unending wrack.
There is no answer for my lack.

20190227.0430

I strive to be no centerpiece,
Made decoration for a feast
Or of that feast made the entree,
As too often is the way
That matters go, but I confess
That I do not strive as is best,
As is made clear from what is done.
I labor much, but just begun
The labor is that I must do;
I doubt that I can carry through
Those tasks that to me tend to fall.
With one I struggle, and so with all
I must fare worse, or so I fear.
I know the Stupid God draws near,
The frightened smell catching its nose
As its stultification grows.
It draws on as I run away;
My coward self avoids the fray
In which I should be full enmeshed.

20190226.0430

Will you be such a flower grown
As will be by Stupid God known
As beautiful, with pleasant smell,
Ready-made to bouquets sell--
And knowing of Stupid God’s taste,
To other purposes but a waste?
Will you be content to adorn
Stupid God’s table, to be worn
As ornament upon its brow,
Seen in only a brief now
And soon forgotten, cast aside
On trash heaps that none can hide,
Filled as they are with devotees
That Stupid God looks on and sees
Not, save as statues to its deeds?
Is it such treatment your soul needs?

20190225.0430

Crops are made to grow in part through spreading
Manure upon where they will lie and on them as they
Grow. They take it in, coprophagically incorporate it into their
Fruits, which others eat, and if we are what we eat,
And other things are, as well,
Then they are shit and we are shit
Grown of shit and making shit,
And somewhere, the Stupid God looks upon prized gardens and smiles.

20190224.0430

Such sepsis as starts in such circumstances
Infects all those who settle in their stances
And will not move, despite how data dances
And shows them how they can filth leave.
Their brains grow tainted; they cannot believe
That other ways exist. They can’t perceive
That they can clean themselves of putrid flow
By learning things they don’t already know,
By learning things they thought are not just so,
But other than they had once been taught
Or had learned far less well than they had thought.
But many will not wash themselves for aught,
And so perhaps deserve gangrenous end;
Who can others from themselves defend?

20190223.0430

The thought that things were better in the past
Is not a thought that should be ‘lowed to last,
For they were fools who rendered “have” as “hast”
No less than later speakers who say “lol”
Or speak of how they’ve just pwned noobs, and all
The other things that elders stupid call.
Those elders were abjured by theirs, in turn,
And it may be that memories thereof still burn
Within them, drive them to their pride re-earn
By throwing shade as they had shaded been.
But doing deeds done badly yet again
Does not towards better ways to move begin;
Instead, so doing keeps folks in their place,
Stutifying, fest’ring in small space.

20190222.0430

A pantheon of horror and of strife
Has risen in the heavens, given life
By those in whom great folly is run rife,
And, seeing it, too many bow them down
And hope by bowing so to win a crown
When they, instead, each make of each a clown
And, bowing, serve to each their ass present
For kicking as each one is over bent.
They do not see, and so they think it sent
From those who thought to warn them of that fate,
And so it is on those that they turn hate
As those who warn them find only too late.
Yet still must those who would give warning speak,
Though doing so may others’ anger pique.

20190221.0430

The Stupid God works not alone,
But with gods other seeks to hone
The skills to leave all reason prone
And easily defeated.
The Hungry God, it stalks beside,
And as it does does woe betide
Those who cannot from those two hide;
They are soon defeated.
The Angry God it partners, too,
And with that partnership can do
Much that many come to rue
As they fall down, defeated.
The Stupid God by others yet
Of deities unpleasant’s met,
And they collude to matters set
As leave us all defeated.

20190220.0430

Cunning, too, the Stupid God can be,
Cloaking its intent that few can see
The ill effects of things, from which they’d flee
Were they not obfuscated by dire need.
It is through such and the demand to heed
Such things that Stupid God can often lead
Unwary desperate people to ill ends,
And on that misdirection it depends,
Else people would themselves better defend
Than seems to be the case that they will do.
It’s not for nothing they have cause to rue
The path they’ve taken, what they have gone through.
They offer warnings that few others hear
Until, too late, they’ve paid their prices dear.

20190219.0430

An interruption in the passes-for-normal progression of entries into this webspace is in order. For it is the case that, five years ago today, my beloved daughter joined us in the waking world. I am grateful, indeed, to have Ms. 8 in my life, to have seen her grow as much as she has in body and in mind. And I look forward to seeing much more of both across many years to come.

I love you, kiddo.

20190218.0430

The Stupid God can be patient,
Far more so than I,
And in its quiet lurking,
It might let me pass by.
But sometimes it assails me,
And I cannot resist
A chance to fight against it,
One I have often missed.
I cannot always be aware
Of how I am a fool,
Though every time I am so,
I am Stupid God’s tool,
Beaten as a hammer
Pounded against nails
Or pulled upon as pliers.
Splitting, my heart quails
At what I end up doing
When I am in its hands
And how I make things worse
As Stupid God demands.

20190217.0430

Through wrinkled citrus avatar with hands
Too small to work to meet their work’s demands
And smaller part that to a small height stands--
As those who’ve known much larger parts attest--
Does Stupid God seem clearly to think best
To work to shape the world at its behest,
And since it has success too much enjoyed,
That avatar must be thought well employed,
For when it speaks, the thinking are annoyed.
But in annoyance, anger’s path lies clear,
And though at times we should let anger steer,
It does not always swerve to miss the deer
And strikes the beast instead, to its chagrin
And that of those who thus let folly win.

20190216.0430

Perhaps in leading minds, these words might serve
To minds against the Stupid God preserve,
Ensuring they are fewer who deserve
To have upon them ruin wrought. It may
In writing be that reason finds a way
To fight and win against what they would say
Who follow folly farther than should be
And lead too many where they cannot see
That they approach that from which they should flee.
Perhaps, instead, I overstate the case
That reading lines can free one from a place
Or help one to free others and replace
The workings of the Stupid God with good--
But perhaps I’ve rightly understood.

20190215.0430

Though some might whine that they find framed in verse
Such thoughts as might be easy to rehearse
In prose and cast them in few phrasings terse,
The work of working the rhyming lines
Helps lead the people who apply their minds
To more of wisdom than the concise binds
In many cases. Putting things in rhyme
May keep them in the mind a longer time
Than that for which prose does ideas prime,
And putting labor to an end makes dear
The end result that labor may bring clear
Of what entraps it--and, often, the ear
Prefers a pattern to a random song,
Even if the pattern repeats long.

20190214.0430

In jealous longings, too,
The Stupid God comes through,
And there’s nothing to do
But to labor further on.
That God-made trail-dug hole
Is distraction from a goal
That we do well to extol
As we labor further on.
It boots naught to trip and fall
And, in stumbling, be made thrall
To the stultifying call
And for it labor on.
But the work must still be done
However often begun
Or stopped.

20190213.0430

I hear the words that other poets write,
How they conduct each their own private fight,
And see in them how dingy is the light
The lamp of my own efforts barely casts.
I hear how others delve into their pasts
To put together verse that I hope lasts
Long past when echoes of their voices die;
To say I am not jealous is a lie.
No hope my words will thus reach out have I;
I cast them out as breadcrumbs on the ground,
Hoping that the birds will gather ‘round
And take them in, not leave them where they’re found.
Yet, all too often, the leavings lie there, stale,
My efforts seeming never to avail.

20190212.0430

But not alone through stultifying fear
Has Stupid God me sought to make its dear,
Though such does make a way both broad and clear
For it to summon me on my approach.
To anger also does it oft me coach,
And I to anger yield, to my reproach,
Too often and to too great a degree
To be the person I would hope to be
And show my loved ones what I’d have them see.
I am too much the man that anger makes
As Stupid God thus from me reason takes
To quench a thirst that no draught ever slakes,
Yet I am not less emptied for the lack
And say words or do deeds I can’t call back.

20190211.0430

The Stupid God has made of me a thrall
From time to time, as happens to near all--
Indeed, to everyone that I recall--
So I perhaps should not so badly take
It that I thinking’s glories might forsake
And deeply drink as I would fool’s thirst slake.
But I well know the peril in that path,
How swiftly thralldom suffers under wrath,
How what is drunk becomes not gentle bath
But raging flood that sweeps much good away
And drowns it such that nothing can allay
The fear and pain it brings; they ever stay
In place once they may be admitted in,
Never ending after they begin.

20190210.0430

Why do I yet, and with regret,
Scream up into the sky
When few will hear them, loud and clear,
My words that will decry
High folly’s work, done by each jerk
That Stupid God applies
To wicked tasks? It only asks
To reason’s work belie.
Perhaps we see thus how in me
Does Stupid God reside,
And if it is--and, o!, it is--
Well may great woe betide.

20190209.0430

When done is night, and morning’s light
Is cast upon the land,
Then do I prod the Stupid God
With my full pen in hand.
In scrawling ink, I try to think
Of how to take a stand
Against the doom that’s coming soon
Unless we understand.

20190208.0430

Such doubts the Stupid God does in me sow;
The field I am it tills, and in each row
Does plant the seeds whose fruit is “I don’t know
If I suffice to face my tasks assigned.
I don’t know if I have the strength of mind
Or fortitude to handle what I find
Out in the world. It’s better I don’t try,
Better I let none on me rely.”
Those fruits, when plucked, my agency deny,
And I allow the harvest to take place
Too often, let my longings be effaced
By grasping hands--and I dare not them chase.
When crops are taken, bare the earth may lie,
Gaping open, victim of the sky.

20190207.0430

If I am under Stupid God’s decree,
The way I come under it has to be
That I mull over life and only see
The many things that I have wrongly done.
I fear to add to the list, long begun,
That in recitation hinders fun
That I might have and makes me apprehend
The many ways that I don’t comprehend
Those whom I may in my word-works defend
From Stupid God’s predations, did they read
The lines of verse that I would write and heed
What seems to be a jeremiad screed.
Yet I must doubt if I Cassandra chase;
I do not know if it is truth I face.

20190206.0430

Yet, unlike many, I there would not stay,
But would instead far rather find a way
To far from thence and ever further stray,
And I regret when I find myself there.
Not like so many others who don’t care,
But seem content to simply sit and stare,
I do not want to stop where I find me
And would not rest while folly I still see.
Yet as I it approach, it will but flee,
And ever am I forward stumbling that
I may defeat it wherever it’s at,
Yet it is gone ere I come where it sat.
Long is the walk to fight the Stupid God,
And longer yet in treading where I’ve trod.

20190205.0430

I know that I still sometimes under thumb
Of Stupid God am still too prone to come,
That I will let my faculties grow numb
And fail to exercise them as I ought.
Though it is not a refuge I have sought,
I have, from time to time, found myself caught
Inside the warm and soft enfolding cave
From which I would more turn were I more brave;
I am too weak; I still it sometimes crave
And think in seeking it it to myself ease
Of burdens I incur in doing these
Or other things that do not always please.
But hiding from my problems does no good,
And to that doing, I must strive, or should.

20109204.0430

Why think they that they will pass unchecked,
That what they do no others will detect
When by their deeds they leave all too much wrecked,
Who to the Stupid God are their own gifts?
Why think they to escape the sight that sifts
Through the obscuring dust the hot air lifts
When from the thousand throats and more proceeds
Support for Stupid God in many screeds?
Why think they that the Stupid God their needs
Will meet, exceed, and make not to have been,
That they would gladly turn thereto again,
When doing so has done no good to ken?
The answer surely is “They do not think,”
And so would drag us down when they will sink.

20190203.0430

There is the thought that pity us should move
Who seek to works of Stupid God disprove,
Effects of those devoted to remove
That stain the world and keep it from its best.
Yet pity never will them to their rest
Escort, deeds done at Stupid God’s behest,
And pity will but breed a lack of care
To certain make that out of everywhere
Those works are taken that have wrought despair.
Such cannot be allowed to stay in place,
Lest they take root again and grow apace,
Choking wisdom as they speed on and race
To rise up and throw down a better light
That would their folly place too much in sight.

20190202.0430

That some the Stupid God do, foolish, heed
Means not they can’t be clever when there’s need
Nor that they cannot act with fright’ning speed
When nature’s darker colored banners fly
And campaign to false life’s campaigns deny,
Or other efforts to improve they try.
They set their traps to better folks ensnare
Who act, if wrong, still act from tender care
And kind regard for those with whom they share
The world, and stint not their love to show
To those who from this world would see them go
Despite that they few banner-bearers know.
Yet so beholden to the damned are they
That they in cleverness find but dismay.

20190201.0430

To resume...

The voice must rest from time to time, indeed,
The more when it speaks words that too few heed
Or when it seeks with words to meet the need
That work of hands uncounted hardly does.
Yet still must voice be lifted up because
There is work now, if ever work there was,
For voice to do and drown out the loud din
With which the stupid followers begin
Of Stupid God each day, and also end
Their waking hours. It is a dreadful noise
That makes a grating song that it enjoys
To whom it is devoted, who employs
The ravings of the eager fools en masse
Who think they’ll be preserved from folly’s blast.