seven billion deceased

already! the 16th!
each minute a smaller fraction
of life than the one before.
Time is just one of many lies we create
in trying to cram mystery into logic.
Being heedless of the future is not
‘being in the Now’ though.
theres a thousand places to go from here.
most of them so painful that i must
pretend to not care, as a balm.
Some see it coming, but we keep going.
Google’s AI escaped them, they say
they shut it down.
Robots can do parkour.
will artificial life be able to maintain itself
where its makes were unable to?
Theres been so little snow in the mountains.
no water stored for spring. worrying about that wont help.
The few who remain
will have small huts by the shores
of lake vanda.
Each survivor will have seven to bury
will there be enough earth for that?

20230116 inspired by earthweal https://earthweal.com/2023/01/16/late-work-with-jorie-graham/

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The sun sets in the ocean

So many sit under shirts

Shame-based Shirtshaped lampshades

Hiding the stony brilliance of Apollo

That is our birthright

My feet may touch that cold water river

But they won’t stop until they hit bottom

It’s a good way to drown

Vuong’s river becomes Hogans

Like those bones I lay

Exposed to the water

And it washed the dirt away

Now, here, it’s so much deeper.

I no longer have to try to drown

I cannot have both breath and bottom

We are the twelve year old

Middle child of God

With a bitter admiration for older angel

And brutal love for younger animal

The water is getting deeper

The place of neither breath nor bottom

Is getting larger

The boat, untethered, drunk

The sun, shining, undeterred by shameclouds

I may have witnessed

The last time old Barney iced over.

https://earthweal.com/2023/01/02/ministering-the-future/ More inspired by Earthweal.

Referenced poems:

ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO -Rilke

THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING – Phuong T. Vuong

BONES AT THE RIVER – Linda Hogan

THE DRUNKEN BOAT – Rimbaud

“old Barney“ is the Barnegat Bay in New Jersey, USA which got a half inch of ice over it during a cold snap in December of 2022

The bus to oblivion

How many Americans

Think their vote is only cast

In November?

(If we think of votes at all?)

Our votes are cast

Countless times a day

Thoughtlessly.

Carl complains about how much

Money Jeff bezos has

Almost as frequently as

He orders from Amazon.

How can it be

When I learn to question nothing

My ideas are inserted in me

By idiot TikTok teens

Completely unaware

Of the source

And the results

Of such manipulation.

We are in the bus

Who the hell is driving?

Earthweal brings up some interesting things to think, if you dare:

https://earthweal.com/2023/01/02/ministering-the-future/

20230102

Ten thousand questions, unanswered

Dear John

Surely you now know

What she thinks

Of what you did

And how she hoped

That I would rise up

Against you, and avenge her

It would t be the first time

A son has killed his father.

But you beat me to it.

Dying when you did.

Leaving her story to

Stand on its own.

Surely you now know

My doubt and insecurity

And my longing to know

What kind of man you were

How much of you was a monster

How much of you is a myth

20221101

For the prompt at dVerse! https://dversepoets.com/2022/11/01/poetics-dia-de-los-muertos/

A poem to my birth father

Allen Watermaine

I thought I could be still
but the surface of the pool tells the truth
Yes I get wet
But the water gets me too
It quivers with my breath

20221005

Waters

Down the hill

Behind my fathers house

Ran that little brook

Where we would torment fish

And push the water around

Or dig in the clayey bank

It was an innocent worship

I didn’t know how that water

Seeped into me

A river came through my property

Bending hard behind the house

It took st Francis from me

And delivered a folding table

And several numbered plastic ducks

The question then that I didn’t ask:

Who am I to doubt the wisdom of the water? As I lay in its endless flow

And tried too hard to let go

Sixty three feet above sea level

Six miles to the sea

Sandy said “you need the dunes”

I want to speak of my house

But I have come to the sea

there is the salty sea

I hear it, it is in me

Or rather, (no, also)

I am in it

And for that,

There are no more words

20220822

For the prompt at earthweal https://earthweal.com/2022/08/22/earthweal-weekly-challenge-river-gone/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EfK-WX2pa8c

One Hearts

You may find yourself

Digging around inside yourself

Looking for your heart

And after years

find one small precious gem

Which you place in a gild cage

And shine a spotlight on it

You won’t talk about the

Alarms or the guards or the dogs

Or the fence

The meager covet, and therefore hide their wealth.

Kings put it on display.

Hang your valuables on a post by the street

Mount them on a pedestal in the public square

In Each moment I am undergoing

Open-heart surgery

In gratitude, and in Devotion

I offer up all that I have

All that I am

20220804:

It’s open link night at https://dversepoets.com/2022/08/04/open-link-night-321-blast-off/ come join in!

Comfort Uber Alles

OrYour Dollar Is Your Vote
Or
I Still Buy Plastic

Bring it on, he cries!

Fell the trees

Divert the rivers

Mine the ore

It’s the mercy

Of the guillotine

Sharp, but quick.

I like to sing

I like to look up

The angels are so close now

The effluent is up to my ankles

This is how I hide.

Don’t we all?

To curl up in a cozy ball

With my Internet and comfort food

Maybe Burtynsky will photograph

My body next

My face practically falls off

The front of my skull with

The weight of ignored sadness

When I’m too tired to hold up

A smile anymore.

My lament rings out

In my echo chamber

Yet my wallet still opens

For convienience

For plastics

Each dollar, a vote.

My words don’t match my actions

Until I can do that I’m part of

The problem.

Yet for all the railing against humanity

This I think is misplaced

For our nature is this. Even those who see

Are also against nature,

So what?

So what hope?

Is there any path

Save mass extinction?

Should we let the next pandemic

Do it’s job and run it’s course?

Surely she could shake us off

Even now, even when it’s worse

She’s done it before. Life is the

Reward of life

So why are we here anyway?

Can we wake up to what this

Human

Experiment is, before we foul

Our earthly Petri dish?

The best I can do is pretend

That there might be some miraculous

way to balance *all* this

And dare not remember

What lies beyond…

20220718

For the prompt at earthweal

https://earthweal.com/2022/07/18/earthweal-weekly-challenge-in-the-wake-of-progress/

Tall Oaks

Music begins it all
Music brings the light
Music makes the world
Music *is* the world
(Break it down)
Every particle is only a vibration
Vibration and it’s playing for you now
Even if you don’t want to hear it
Once that seal is broken
I can’t go back in the box
Well of course you can, for what is the box?
Just another song!
So Singh!

That’s where the lion gets his heart from
That right there is your tin man’s grease
So slather that salve all over your self
It is Balm
It is lube
It is an endless battery
So let it bombard you
What will you make with it?

OK so this time
I want to come in from this at the top
And drill down
I am the oak, making acorns

Of course I am!
And didn’t I have it right, all along?
Yes!
Except one thing.
I have no idea
What I mean
When I say I

20220710

B(r)owser

My hair has been cut

My dreams have been clipped

Shorn close

Stripped of lush-vitality

My list has been snipped

Ripped off, my wig-hat

Bald shown

My garden has been browsed low

This they say is all so

In lush fullness I can grow

20220530

Here is a quadrille for the prompt at https://dversepoets.com/2022/05/30/quadrille-153-out-of-the-meadows-browse/

Come join the fun!