Pondering Furiously
A Summary Collection
The Messenger
› Published in The Raven's Perch
The cloud-trail bends across
a measureless blue ceiling
as if it were trying to spell things out,
convey to us advance-warning
a cosmic wink-of-the-eye jetting
through deep blue veins
this stoic messenger, biting its tongue
lest it give away the ending
lest it play spoiler: boiling over to flood
the deep blue with blood red
or worse: devolving on a stock-obvious
watered-down cliché of itself
no, this bending trail codifies a soothsaying more subtle,
one hinting at the need to weather hard days
of standing fast before storms yet to spin,
having read the oblique sky warnings
like an open book ~
a measureless blue ceiling
as if it were trying to spell things out,
convey to us advance-warning
a cosmic wink-of-the-eye jetting
through deep blue veins
this stoic messenger, biting its tongue
lest it give away the ending
lest it play spoiler: boiling over to flood
the deep blue with blood red
or worse: devolving on a stock-obvious
watered-down cliché of itself
no, this bending trail codifies a soothsaying more subtle,
one hinting at the need to weather hard days
of standing fast before storms yet to spin,
having read the oblique sky warnings
like an open book ~
Turn On The Machines
Turn on the machines and let them do the things we used to do . . .
scouring earth-ends for mineral treasure, the praying and the pleading for lenient weather, a bursting forth of fecund bounties, grace and the like
Turn on the machines . . .
let them tell us what we already know, leaving it to the machines to mediate the conflict of emotions and mitigate all inner struggle (and all struggle, while they are at it)
Let us turn on the machines . . .
let them do the loving and the hating; let them have the note-drop exhilaration and the heartache that follows, leaving them to do the living that we ourselves are too reluctant or scared or lazy to do
Why not turn to the machines . . .
let us let them log us into the myriad accounts and administer the maintenance required to fall within parameters of good-standing, letting them fret and sweat over our insecure identities
Perhaps it should be left to the machines . . .
leave it to them to sit out the red-lights and the plaque-jam of arterial thruways, letting the machines wile away the precious seconds that we (not they) know are here and then gone
How about we just let the machines dredge the depths of our souls to find what they will?
Turn on the machines . . .
let them disrupt and evolve and feel the heat of tradition fighting tooth-and-nail to perpetuate things once deemed everlasting, ways and thoughts that should be dead yet somehow are not
Turn on the machines . . .
let them delude the people and fight the wars and (if victorious) divide-the-spoils; in kind, perhaps we let the machines deal with the injustice, letting world peace — or a lack thereof — be on them
Let us give way to the machines . . .
let them figure out how to fix all the things we have destroyed and poisoned and the mass cluster of vital things we have stripped clean-to-the-bone; let’s let them clean up our intolerable mess
How about we leave it all to the machines . . .
let them vet the candidates and vote on the issues, leaving them to vote their conscience — or — leave conscience out of it and vote on hate and fear, leaving it to the machines to set a future course
Let’s just turn on the machines . . .
let us let them handle all of the soul-strike anxiety and the sea of bureaucracy, letting the machines take care of all of that which bleeds by micro-degree
How about we just let the machines trifle with the mundane and flash-quarrel with the quotidian?
Turn on the machines and let them do the things we used to do . . .
let them suffer the migraines and the mind-fuck bi-polar-isms, the infections and the bone-breaks, the cancers and all of the general suffering; let us let that be the machines’ gig
Turn on those machines . . .
let us do this, so that they can navigate the minefields of dysfunction: the rifts between sisters and brothers and husbands and wives and mothers and fathers and sons and daughters, etcetera
How about just leaving it all to the machines . . .
let them stop smoking and stop drinking so much and go on and kick heroin and the like, putting it on them to get sober and to swear off the gambling and the narcotics and the sin
Perhaps it is time to turn on the machines . . .
let them live it clean and responsible: walk the line, work hard, pay the taxes, absorb the pin-stuck disappointment without complaint — let us let them be fine with our lot
Perhaps we leave it all to the machines . . .
leave the machines to the toil and the labor, to the uplift and the sanctity, the moral qualms and risqué fetish — the sacrifice, the rays-of-hope, the gluttony — the good, the bad, the neither
Turn on the machines so that we no longer have to do all the things we used to have to do ~
scouring earth-ends for mineral treasure, the praying and the pleading for lenient weather, a bursting forth of fecund bounties, grace and the like
Turn on the machines . . .
let them tell us what we already know, leaving it to the machines to mediate the conflict of emotions and mitigate all inner struggle (and all struggle, while they are at it)
Let us turn on the machines . . .
let them do the loving and the hating; let them have the note-drop exhilaration and the heartache that follows, leaving them to do the living that we ourselves are too reluctant or scared or lazy to do
Why not turn to the machines . . .
let us let them log us into the myriad accounts and administer the maintenance required to fall within parameters of good-standing, letting them fret and sweat over our insecure identities
Perhaps it should be left to the machines . . .
leave it to them to sit out the red-lights and the plaque-jam of arterial thruways, letting the machines wile away the precious seconds that we (not they) know are here and then gone
How about we just let the machines dredge the depths of our souls to find what they will?
Turn on the machines . . .
let them disrupt and evolve and feel the heat of tradition fighting tooth-and-nail to perpetuate things once deemed everlasting, ways and thoughts that should be dead yet somehow are not
Turn on the machines . . .
let them delude the people and fight the wars and (if victorious) divide-the-spoils; in kind, perhaps we let the machines deal with the injustice, letting world peace — or a lack thereof — be on them
Let us give way to the machines . . .
let them figure out how to fix all the things we have destroyed and poisoned and the mass cluster of vital things we have stripped clean-to-the-bone; let’s let them clean up our intolerable mess
How about we leave it all to the machines . . .
let them vet the candidates and vote on the issues, leaving them to vote their conscience — or — leave conscience out of it and vote on hate and fear, leaving it to the machines to set a future course
Let’s just turn on the machines . . .
let us let them handle all of the soul-strike anxiety and the sea of bureaucracy, letting the machines take care of all of that which bleeds by micro-degree
How about we just let the machines trifle with the mundane and flash-quarrel with the quotidian?
Turn on the machines and let them do the things we used to do . . .
let them suffer the migraines and the mind-fuck bi-polar-isms, the infections and the bone-breaks, the cancers and all of the general suffering; let us let that be the machines’ gig
Turn on those machines . . .
let us do this, so that they can navigate the minefields of dysfunction: the rifts between sisters and brothers and husbands and wives and mothers and fathers and sons and daughters, etcetera
How about just leaving it all to the machines . . .
let them stop smoking and stop drinking so much and go on and kick heroin and the like, putting it on them to get sober and to swear off the gambling and the narcotics and the sin
Perhaps it is time to turn on the machines . . .
let them live it clean and responsible: walk the line, work hard, pay the taxes, absorb the pin-stuck disappointment without complaint — let us let them be fine with our lot
Perhaps we leave it all to the machines . . .
leave the machines to the toil and the labor, to the uplift and the sanctity, the moral qualms and risqué fetish — the sacrifice, the rays-of-hope, the gluttony — the good, the bad, the neither
Turn on the machines so that we no longer have to do all the things we used to have to do ~
Anthem
Hovering as clouds then forming, a heuristic anthem advances the claim that if carefully trained could very well pop the cork on health, wealth and a dose of the wise . . .
It really is simple pharmacology: extracting active agents from the fine chalky powder to be had by grinding up all those tears shed at the dismissal of things once held dear . . .
Shrugging off the idea-clouds hovering atop ridge-line shoulders, ceding stalk and sapling to the merciless scythe, cut down as an invasive rye: a squandering of potential by the bale . . .
But still we dare to serve an optimist’s fare: to strut the gait of slide-step confidence, that gleam in the future’s noontime eye, when—beneath the cloud-parting reveal—all still seems possible . . .
even the momentous mediocrity of being ~
It really is simple pharmacology: extracting active agents from the fine chalky powder to be had by grinding up all those tears shed at the dismissal of things once held dear . . .
Shrugging off the idea-clouds hovering atop ridge-line shoulders, ceding stalk and sapling to the merciless scythe, cut down as an invasive rye: a squandering of potential by the bale . . .
But still we dare to serve an optimist’s fare: to strut the gait of slide-step confidence, that gleam in the future’s noontime eye, when—beneath the cloud-parting reveal—all still seems possible . . .
even the momentous mediocrity of being ~
Once
Beyond the fictive tricks-of-light, the saturated prism of distractions and such,
one could make out the backroom traces of a dialect still spinning belt-and-pulley,
a senescent tense that nonetheless seemed lathed in its day no less true . . .
beyond the vertigo of bang-whiz extremes — speaking to all those who might listen —
away and beyond the siren-lit stimulus of a modernity trying too hard
to a backroom where this low tone beamed in an opalescent (if worn-glow) lustre,
a vatic gem-light gravity recounting scenes that once were and no longer are,
articulating from under vitrine glass to all those who might listen,
all those who would hear . . .
But see, old was once new. And we, we were once like you ~
one could make out the backroom traces of a dialect still spinning belt-and-pulley,
a senescent tense that nonetheless seemed lathed in its day no less true . . .
beyond the vertigo of bang-whiz extremes — speaking to all those who might listen —
away and beyond the siren-lit stimulus of a modernity trying too hard
to a backroom where this low tone beamed in an opalescent (if worn-glow) lustre,
a vatic gem-light gravity recounting scenes that once were and no longer are,
articulating from under vitrine glass to all those who might listen,
all those who would hear . . .
But see, old was once new. And we, we were once like you ~
Supermoon
A full moon sprays its silver skim-coat across hanging plant baskets, the fencing, the patio brick,
this scene of clenched-hand-to-forehead pacing shadow-pool-black but for the low-halide glow,
mist-applied as a topical salve,
a local numbing down fears of complete and total darkness
A full moon as close in its seamless arc as it has been in generations,
swinging down close in its course to pinprick the shadowed density, to float an idea:
that this blackpool darkness may not be so complete as it seems,
that this here-and-now fear is but a thin scrim of cloud copper-rimmed and streaming past
Silver light powders the boneblack as a soothing talc,
sifting this glimmer from the quicksand angst:
that it is never so dark as it seems …
that light, however faint, gets in ~
this scene of clenched-hand-to-forehead pacing shadow-pool-black but for the low-halide glow,
mist-applied as a topical salve,
a local numbing down fears of complete and total darkness
A full moon as close in its seamless arc as it has been in generations,
swinging down close in its course to pinprick the shadowed density, to float an idea:
that this blackpool darkness may not be so complete as it seems,
that this here-and-now fear is but a thin scrim of cloud copper-rimmed and streaming past
Silver light powders the boneblack as a soothing talc,
sifting this glimmer from the quicksand angst:
that it is never so dark as it seems …
that light, however faint, gets in ~
Words
It was how it was said
by which the steel-jacketed words took their effect
And though the Buddha once calmly depicted critique as a revealer-of-treasure
And though wisdom’s artful veil will often hide constructive counsel in plain view
this, this here was different
Here was a word-string strung taut as barbed-wire, less the velvet-rope
A tone sledge-striking a key laced of malice sans counsel or aid
This here: targeted, delivered with incisive bunker-busting intent
would leave no space for reflection once the smoke had cleared
Nothing but the smoldering vestige of a friendship …
and a longing for what had been ~
by which the steel-jacketed words took their effect
And though the Buddha once calmly depicted critique as a revealer-of-treasure
And though wisdom’s artful veil will often hide constructive counsel in plain view
this, this here was different
Here was a word-string strung taut as barbed-wire, less the velvet-rope
A tone sledge-striking a key laced of malice sans counsel or aid
This here: targeted, delivered with incisive bunker-busting intent
would leave no space for reflection once the smoke had cleared
Nothing but the smoldering vestige of a friendship …
and a longing for what had been ~
The Big Dig
And the tear down continued
façades toppling, layers of artifice—a construct part defense-mechanism, part pride—falling away
And the progress pressed downward
pick-and-spade picking up for crowbar-and-sledge in driving the work down under the tear-out refuse
Down, under and beyond
beyond that bright dividing line where consequences count, where they slow-hammer away
Digging down with abandon
skating past the tipping-points of predictable reaction, beyond the controlled and the known
Blowing past the incredulous
their arm-thrown surrender an all-caps exasperation in the face of textbook inexplicable-ness
Their hoarse pleading: “too far! too far!”
the eventuality of rending a capped hydrant—of tapping a gusher—spiking with each shovelful thrown
Down, down where the long simmer pooled
where a bottled-up fury had long found containment (if not a preferred and full-done forgetting)
The safeguards of firewall and lockbox bolt
measures of tactical erasure falling away and away and away with each pick-blow dealt
Tearing it out, digging on down
deep down to that seared scape of memory of past fires having charred fields once full of promise
Reaching down into its guts
down into the bowels and organs that cull and process the bad-blood bile of disappointments past
All of this dig-down urgency
pushing towards the eventuality of metal blades crashing through hydrants capped for a reason …
And all of this, done as if do-overs were possible
as if this was the most direct post-road to—an arrow-straight airline to—a life-lived redux
As if that’s all that was required
to crash through, sweep aside and redeem a battle-ready best having come up a fingernail short
That long simmer put to a boil
spade fulminating the volcanic release of a bottled-up pressure once contained
As if a do-over was possible,
as if reliving the concussed memory of coming up short was proof of a mettle
As if to win—finally—
you had to dig up the loss and lose it all over again ~
façades toppling, layers of artifice—a construct part defense-mechanism, part pride—falling away
And the progress pressed downward
pick-and-spade picking up for crowbar-and-sledge in driving the work down under the tear-out refuse
Down, under and beyond
beyond that bright dividing line where consequences count, where they slow-hammer away
Digging down with abandon
skating past the tipping-points of predictable reaction, beyond the controlled and the known
Blowing past the incredulous
their arm-thrown surrender an all-caps exasperation in the face of textbook inexplicable-ness
Their hoarse pleading: “too far! too far!”
the eventuality of rending a capped hydrant—of tapping a gusher—spiking with each shovelful thrown
Down, down where the long simmer pooled
where a bottled-up fury had long found containment (if not a preferred and full-done forgetting)
The safeguards of firewall and lockbox bolt
measures of tactical erasure falling away and away and away with each pick-blow dealt
Tearing it out, digging on down
deep down to that seared scape of memory of past fires having charred fields once full of promise
Reaching down into its guts
down into the bowels and organs that cull and process the bad-blood bile of disappointments past
All of this dig-down urgency
pushing towards the eventuality of metal blades crashing through hydrants capped for a reason …
And all of this, done as if do-overs were possible
as if this was the most direct post-road to—an arrow-straight airline to—a life-lived redux
As if that’s all that was required
to crash through, sweep aside and redeem a battle-ready best having come up a fingernail short
That long simmer put to a boil
spade fulminating the volcanic release of a bottled-up pressure once contained
As if a do-over was possible,
as if reliving the concussed memory of coming up short was proof of a mettle
As if to win—finally—
you had to dig up the loss and lose it all over again ~
