20160930.0625

Oh, coffee! Many are the praises sung
Of your black brewéd body every morn,
And many also are the laurels hung
Upon your name save among the foresworn.
I add to them such lauds as I can give;
No paean does my voice so well uplift
As you deserve, but still, while I do live,
In spoken word I'll not give you short shrift
Or in the written word I you deny
All claim of honor and gratitude for aid
You offer me. On you, I do rely
For Stupid God's despite, as I am made.
For if another god has blesséd me
Than Stupid God, the blessing you must be.

20160929.0727

O, Stupid God, whose faces are too many,
Turn your visage away from me and mine,
Look not upon my works or upon any
That I would put to use for kin and kine,
But look instead upon those who are not
Sworn and dedicate to your despite!
They are the many upon whom you ought
To bestow your blessings, day and night,
For it is they who act upon your will
And they who, acting ever in your name,
Will shout their falsehoods from atop each hill
And fill the valleys with sounds of the same.
I am blessed enough by other gods;
Let others know and feel your staves and rods.

20160928.0556

As I stood in the shower this morning
Because I wished to be clean,
I felt the water grow colder
And stood straight up from my lean.
I know that my mind had been wand'ring,
That I my attention had laxed,
But I suddenly found myself worried
That I had myself overtaxed
In some way that caused me to black out,
For I would have solemnly sworn
That more time had passed than I'd realized;
My shower is usually warm
From when I begin to its ending,
But it was not like that today.
That it was not was surprising;
What was I to think or to say?
I looked at the clock when I got out;
It showed a time that would make sense
Not if I had truly blacked out
But been in each moment, and hence
I know that I remained conscious
As water went from warm to cold,
But I know that I remain cautious.
Losing time makes one not bold.

20160927.0607

The Stupid God wears many faces.
They appear in many places,
Not least of which are 'lection races--
As we have had to see.
As the people dance and sing
And trumpet every little thing
That upjumped puppets forward bring,
The Stupid God feels glee,
For worship gives the gods their power
And worship is in every hour
That a god's works are in flower;
Stupid God's grow free.
In the gods' place, there is war
Eternal; it was fought before,
And now it works out quite well for
Stupid God's devotee.
Come fight the Stupid God with me.
Starve the god; help people see
That better things can come to be
Although they won't come easy.

20160926.0600

The night just passed did not pass well,
Broken by the shallow knell
Ringing through the home, no bell,
As my daughter was coughing.
The sleep I slept was split in half
By high-pitched hacking, not a laugh
Covered up to avert wrath--
No, my daughter was coughing.
With water, ginger, menthol rub,
With holding arms and soft back-rub,
My wife and I tended our cub
And stopped our daughter's coughing.
She's sleeping now, my little dear.
Her breathing seems to be all clear
But I'm still straining, seek to hear
If my daughter starts coughing.

20160925.0827

A stack of first-year papers
Waits for my attention;
Review of written capers
Of which some deserve mention
And new assignments' writing
Are my tasks for the day.
In one, my sometimes biting
Commentaries I allay
In the hopes of more
Good work done by students
To see. In all truth, for
The other are intents
The same; I want to see
My pupils all succeed.

20160924.0906

Although my pixelated pen still writes
Each day, or near enough, and I can leave
My lines behind in many bits and bytes,
My inked-end shaft I too seldom upheave,
Too little put a ball point to the page
And spill across it mind-blood in its train.
Arcane symbols, frustrating to rage
The reader unaccustomed to my strain
To make with hand-work words easy to read,
Day after day I neglect to inscribe,
Failing my loud inward voice to heed--
I hear it e'en if I don't imbibe.
Each day I hope to somehow better be
At writing more; hope springs eternally.

20160923.1704

Another work week's come to an end
And I sit alone at home, no friend
To talk to or laugh with, at least not for now,
But I think I perhaps ought not laugh, anyhow,
Given the state of the nation this week
And the way the world looks askance at each peek
Into the innards of this two-ocean land,
At each revelation of the still heavy hand
That grasps at the throats of the people held long
In bondage, chokes them, still demands song
And dance from those people, then rebukes their "play"
By calling them lazy who work not each day--
But calling them worse when they work across hours
And are not at home to tend to the flowers
Planted in nights between sheets--or, worse yes,
Stopping them reaching their homes, or next breaths.

20160922.0628

I have noticed that my rhyme
Coupled with a longer line
Does far better in the time
That I give it
Than do shorter, open bits
Of my exerciséd wits
That in many places sit
Where I post it
Something in stanzaic form
Seems still the expected norm
And when my writings conform
People read 'em
But the structure's not the thing
Rhythm is not a brass ring
Rhyme of verse is not the king
Yet I still heed 'em.

20160921.0615

Hidden, fearing wrong,
They stood around too long,
And I just trudge along
I put words to a song
As though there's nothing wrong.
Now forward, moving strong,
I gaze upon the throng,
Singing pitches wrong
And holding them too long,
Knowing all along
That stopping at a song
Does naught to right the wrong