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Sample Poems: 2005-

2007:

I

Like a snake,

my nose burrows through the folds of the future,

emerging I know not when.

 

The chaos is deafening,

As the terrified flee the coasts.

All over, not just here

Or there.

 

Millions in Florida.

Millions in New York

and Boston.

Hundreds of millions

All over the world.

 

And those were the ones

Who could not flee.

We didn’t see it coming.

We didn’t listen to those who warned.

 

We kept on building – not believing;

But the money is just that –

It’s nothing.

It’s the lives lost that count.

 

And the first wave was all of a sudden –

Kind of.

Seek higher ground they said –

It was a beautiful hot August eve.

 

Seek higher ground!

The interstates were already jammed

With cars returning home.

Those going in the wrong direction couldn’t turn.

 

They of course were the ones who heard it first.

The warnings.

And how do you panic in a traffic jam?

Very badly.

 

I’m sorry.

We just didn’t see it coming.

We needed to see it years before,

Not hours.

No, decades, centuries before perhaps.

We just needed to open our eyes

And listen to those who knew.

And we kept voting in those who didn’t.

 

And here it is in some distant future,

And I don’t know how to get back to the present

To tell you what’s coming.

Watch Greenland!  Watch Antarctica!

Seek higher ground!

 

 

II

 

And that nose, like a snake,

Keeps burrowing further and further;

Till I’m thousands of years beyond.

 

And I see cheering throngs

Gathered in a green lush courtyard;

Dancing and singing

And leaping for joy.

 

There are three towering women,

Holding center stage

Way up front.

 

Eyes blazing, gazes far and distant;

Faces keen and searching,

Announcing the End of Purgatory.

 

The End of Purgatory?

Purgatory?  Purgatory!?!

What nightmare have I just slept through?

 

Why the cheers?  What has happened?

Why Purgatory?  Why this Nightmare?

 

I look around.

I see lean and simple folk;

Clearly poor, but healthy.

And beamingly happy.

 

I see no roads, no cars.

No birds or squirrels.

The sun blazes down hot and intense.

 

What the hell kind of tunnel

Have I just come out of?

Is this the right world?

I’m glad everyone’s so happy,

But sometimes happy isn’t really so fortunate.

 

What has happened to my world???

 

 

III

 

Cassandra was the first to speak,

In this world so far distant in the future;

A dark piercing voice.  It grabbed deep inside me.

 

“BEHOLD!!!” she commanded.

“The Wise Ones have written,

‘It will be easier for a camel

To go through the eye of a needle,

Than for a rich man to enter the

Kingdom of Heaven.’

And again they have said,

‘Money is the root of all evil!’”

 

She looked around,

Seeing the bedraggled lot;

Poverty certainly their bedfellows –

No rich for miles around.

 

“Centuries ago they thus decided

To confiscate all the money possessed

By those rich.

But it did not work.

New rich arose and evil returned again.

And Purgatory remained deeply engrained.

The Poor suffered unmitigated suffering.

 

“Now we have determined all coin

And currency is evil.

And declare it once and for all

To be of no worth.

 

“Those who work will do so for the good of all;

Those who need will receive what they need.

None shall live beyond his or her worth,

For all are worth equally in the eyes of the Lord.

 

“And so it shall be!  Equality without end!  World without end!

Purgatory is no more!

 

“AMEN!”

 

A strange sight, as though these angelic women

Were priestesses ushering a new dawn for humanity.

All were in rapt agreement.

I paused to see more.

 

 

IV

 

The next was Camara,

With brilliant blonde hair,

And blue eyes the depth of the ocean.

 

“The Wise Ones told us,

We were losing our wildlife,

And the climate was getting extreme.

 

“The Gore, in particular raised his voice,

But St. Gore was not heard,

The nations continued their ways.

 

Most of our people were lost

When the oceans rose,

And so many coasts were lost;

And from an environment no longer supportive.

Now worldwide population is less than a billion.

 

“They said to pollute was evil,

Destroying our dear Mother Earth;

Finally we listen.

 

“All forms of pollution are banned,

The people will see to that;

But purgatory will leave its vestiges,

For it will take a thousand years,

For our Mother to regain her health.

 

“We will be vigilant,

We see the end of purgatory.  AMEN.”

 

A strange stillness fell over the crowd,

For this reminder was not welcome.

They – we – wanted the bad to go all away.

Now.

 

 

 

 

July 2006

 His feet dragged up those last few agonizing yards,

He was frozen and exhausted when he finally saw the hue;

Around the bend was the sign he had been searching,

The ever-increasing red haze like sunset-shot fog.

 

“Moses,” the air whispered around him.

He dropped to his knees.

He bent his head to the ground.

He waited.

 

“Moses, why have you come?”

“We descend into chaos –

Meaningless abyss –

We need laws.  Your laws.”

 

The Mist seemed to shrink,

To go off for a moment to think;

A wry smile seemed to glimmer from

the distant ledge.

 

Then the red turned brighter,

And lightning bolts flashed about;

He could sense the anger;

His blood boiled with the omnipresent rage.

 

Moses shrank.  “What is your wish?”

“I see raiders on horse hunting starving villagers,

Then slicing off their heads for sport.

I’d smash them to bits but then I’d be just as evil.”

 

“I see armies slaughtering one another;

I see kings commanding their executioners to kill their victims for petty crimes;

I see robbers killing travelers for their paltry gold;

All this and more I see.  Write that down that it must not be.”

 

Moses looked up and spoke not.

“Well, what is wrong?” the agitated voice shot down.

“My God, it must be simple – keep it simple;

People can not obey laws they do not understand.”

 

And God tried again and again,

Describing the murders and executions and wars that raged all around;

And each time Moses brought it back to a simple plea:

Keep it simple.

 

Finally with a huge rush of wind – a gigantic sigh of frustration,

God ordered, as though through clenched teeth:

“Thou shalt not kill.  Is that simple enough?”

And Moses looked up.

 

“Can you make it simpler?  I fear they will not understand.”

God was incredulous.  “Simpler than that?  THOU SHALT NOT KILL!

That is as simple as I can make it.”

Moses was silent.

 

Finally he spoke.  “I fear it will not work as you wish.

It may take thousands and thousands of years before it is understood;

And even then they may not understand nor obey.”

God simmered and then said, “No matter how long it takes, I will have faith that eventually people will understand and then finally they will have the promised land for which they yearn.”

And so it was written;  but so it was not done – not even yet.

 

[see NOTE in the Blog]

January 2014

RADICAL HYPOTHESIS

TICKING

I wrote a book about that, you know;

A novel – a work of fiction;

But Ticking is true;

The clock doesn’t stop,

The clock never stops.

 

TIME slips by,

Fast or slow – that doesn’t matter;

When gone, it’s gone,

And it’s always gone;

Never to return,

Never to grant second chances;

That requires a new dime,

Never the old one.

 

I’m a Time Management Consultant,

It’s true;

And I counsel my clients to focus,

Focus on what is truly important,

What truly makes a difference;

Makes a difference to what they

Truly value.

Do we?

 

Do we focus on what we truly value?

No.  And we’ll never have that time again.

The Future grows in turmoil and pain;

The Future sinks in profit and greed;

The Future writhes in a world gone amok;

The Future is home to despair and suffering;

The Future grabs us into straightjackets

That make our Present seem like a resort.

 

Is it too late?

Is our Present already too late?

A voice deep within says no;

A voice deep within cries out NO!!!

But that voice has no power,

No power to sway the course;

No power to create a more decent Future;

No power to change the powers that be.

 

And so we stand upon a wayward ship;

A ship committed to its rogue ways;

A ship steering into a sea of ice bergs,

Its captains with donned blinders,

Swatting the voices of sanity as flies;

Or worse, joining their voices

While staying their hands,

And steering toward danger anyway.

 

What I wonder, as I see the clock tick away,

Is will we ever wake up and change our ways?

Will we ever recognize our Future and

Even try – really try – to prevent its dangers?

If so, when?  How long will it take?

(And no, we aren’t there yet.)

And when we do wake up,

WILL IT BE TOO LATE?

June 2005

 Love is not love that hides from pain,

But thrives in its embrace;

Love is not love that turns away,

When a loved one hurts and writhes.

 

Love shares the pain, hurts the more,

Cries the tears and aches  …and aches;

Love wants the bad world to go away,

Yet lingers ‘cause that’s what’s real.

 

Love blossoms in the darkest tunnel,

One alone, isolated – becomes two, together;

A world unbearable – made bearable,

A world torn apart – made whole.

 

And if I could have that world all nice,

But bereft of love – would I?

If I love, would I give up love –

For the sake of one I love?

 

But that’s not the choice we have to make,

We choose to love or not;

The world is definitely better,

When we let our love fly free and far.

 

I know you wrote this already once before,

But you just don’t get it;

It hasn’t quite sunk in.

 

To be is to win.

Unless you’ve realized that fully,

And breathe that in and breathe that out,

You haven’t grasped the underlying foundation

of your very existence.

To be – just simply to be – is itself to have won.

 

To be is to win.

Unbounded opportunity,

No matter how impossible the

Cards we’re dealt.

It doesn’t feel that way sometimes –

Hell, most of the time – but that’s

The way it is:

To be is to win.

 

To be is to win.

Winners all are we,

Yet mostly we dash our rose-colored glasses

To the ground and grind them into the mud.

Yet still, winners all are we.

To be is to win.

 

To be is to win.

When we define the game in other terms,

We can indeed make ourselves lose:

That is within the enormous power we hold;

But it doesn’t change the ground rules deep below,

At the core we still win.

To be – to exist at all – to be is to win.