At the end of one another begins

 

Dec. 31, 2016  (I was 71)

 

At the end of one another begins

The leaf falls as the twig buds

Dishes are washed as the meal is prepared

The shooting starts as the truce is signed

The show is over stay tuned for previews

Get dressed and load the wash machine

Just heard taps and they blow assembly

Old acquaintances should be forgot

A new day dawns so like the last

Each growth ring further from the heart wood

The sound of fireworks more distant each new year

What we thought were circles are actually spirals

Old flames merely embers of memory

Smoke swirls out of mind

Other fires are kindled elsewhere

 

from this week in 2016 (I was 71)

 

Nothing good has a brain

Rocks are wonderful

Wood can be understood

whether it’s alive or dead

Who can doubt a raspberry

off its thorny bush

Some brainless things are bad

but ignorant of the fact

They must be judged by a bad brain

and the judgment affects them not

That with a brain must be evaluated from beyond

by something with a brain or worse

a plan gone terribly wrong

 

They went to war by choice

 

from this week in July 2016  (I was 71)

 

    They went to war by choice

to vent and give voice to rant

from a pent violence

They learned to kill

as a matter of will

 

Here’s your boots and how

your weapon shoots

You go to the desert

you dress like dirt

 

They take what they need to succeed

cover their bros’ backs even

when they seldom relax

 

deployed rather than employed

never entreated utilized til depleted

Things blew up technology too

In their minds fuses were lit

 

They took what they need to survive

skills of the will and pills for the pains

Whatever they took they took home

 

Interrogative

 

from this week in June, 2016  (I was 71)

 

                 Interrogative

I think but have not researched the thought

that the question mark is far less used now than in the past

(and the same for auto turn signals) 

It is the implied admission of ignorance

that is so difficult to admit

in this time of adamant declaration 

despite our common condition of uncertainty

regarding the fundamental concerns

(Every turn is a speculation)

Electronic access to preconceived argument

and reply rebuttal or riposte

reduces thought to a duel instead of a construct 

No need for inquiry

(I think I know where I am going)

That man said to that youth

 

April 9, 2016  (I was 71)

 

That man said to that youth

Do not run into that wall

do not attempt to scale it

         Asked that youth Whose bones are those

Said that man Bones of other youth

         Builders in the village must know how

The wall was there long before the village

         Did you never try

Once taught me not how but to question why

Youth went one way that man another

Kidhood

 

from this week in 2016  (I was 71)

                 

                  Kidhood

We skated in our socks across a polished floor

We decided what everything were for

We could discover a shieldin a garbage can cover 

Cardboard toboggans raced down grassy hills

Rocks could express many skills

We saved the age of savage kids

reinventing civilization every day

abandoning it each night

when with the bats we took flight

blindly on bikes to improve our sight

In the future you will never be truly alone

 

from this week of October, 2016  (I was 71)

 

In the future you will never be truly alone

Your appliances will be watching you

to anticipate your next need perhaps

before you realize it

programmed to determine your behavior

thereby determining how you should behave

scheduling your life before you live it

and taking over many functions to live it for you

while you relax playing at a virtual existence

you shall never live

crows

 

from this week in September, 2016  (I was 71)

 

crows                                            

in oak shadows

feed

on seed

crowteries under trees

probe and peek

through blade and leaf

never stare

yet know I’m there

ignore not ignorant

tolerant of stillness

cautious

if stirred

give word

short flight

darker site

        

in and out of the shade                      

a consternation of crows

in a tribal tiff

tree to tree

ah vs. aw

territorial occupancy

over the mown turf

direct descents

displace squatters

flights of flocks

squawk strategy

Ollie is selling axe handles

 

from this week in September, 2010  (I was 65)

 

Ollie is selling axe handles

   at the lumberjack convention

      guaranteed for a lifetime

         two for the price of one

            but everyone’s buying the chainsaw

               Ollie frets his misfortune

               Stanley hears the accordion sing

            a song from the thick hands

         of the black-bearded big man

      sitting on a stump

   in his checkered woolen shirt

He sees Stanley dance round the axe handle

              

-I began a series of pieces using Laurel and Hardy as

representations of right brain and left brain perception.

Not an original idea, I got it from Colin Wilson’s study,

Frankenstein’s Castle.  More appear in later posts.

I taught in the same public school for thirty-seven years.

 

from this week in September, 2016  (I was 71)

 

I taught in the same public school for thirty-seven years.

I started there when I was twenty-one and left at fifty-eight.

I took an early buy out.

Most students loved me, most colleagues respected me,

the administration kept me on.

No one served the school for a longer tenure.

When I left I think they named an exit after me.

from this week in August, 2016 (I was 71)

 

August 25

from this week in August, 2016  (I was 71)

 

The Shadow Puppet Theatre   (a work in progress)

 

The shadow puppet theatre

cast upon the walks and lawns

presents a new production daily

directed by the wind moving leaves

 

Negatives of movement projected below

To see it as representational

may miss the point

Anything interpretive is an imposition

 

Eyes are unreliable receptors

Seeing should not be believing

The mind seeks shape

patterns seen against closed eyelids

 

Once recognized form persists

just as sub-atomic particulars

called into being when sought

Items in the bay we didn’t know we bought

 

Just the other day

I watched the shadow puppet monkeys play

before behind and in between

the foreground and background screen

 

Movements defined by their shapes

animate the little apes

They bend bound stretch and descend

Three sit together on haunches

 

pausing together on lower branches

Darkened eyes do not see

Covered ears do not hear

their unuttered sound most profound

 

Having discovered the play of the monkeys

many look for nothing else

Imposing interpretations obscure

the other actualities blown in

 

In the shadow puppet theater

sets change with the season

The best productions

appear without reason.

I Call My Name

 

from this week in June 2016  (I was 71)

 

         I Call My Name

 

Chachalacas with maracas

Out of sight Bob White

Never fear the imperative Killdeer

as he rarely does

Odd wit with Godwit

Not still the pill-will-willit

Self-accused cuckoo

Whip-poor-will poor Will

Flick flick flicker

like an old lighter

Chickadee dees from chickadee

and warbles from the warbler

Kiskadee kiskadee flycatcher

Feebly Phoebe calls phoebe

Pewee pee-widi Pee-oo

Hey hey Stellar Jay (who can talk hawk)

Where pipit flies pipit cries pipit

So doth the flock

imagined lyric for “Hawa Dolo” (Ali Farka Touré)

 

from this week in May, 2016  (I was 71)

 

imagined lyric for  “Hawa Dolo” (Ali Farka Touré)

   …find the song on YouTube and follow along…

 

So wild on the loose, wild on the loose, awhile

a girl on the loose awhile

 

A wild girl you don’t want to know, now on the loose

a runway, the bridge over, gone away

one astray, couldn’t stay, done runway

 

So why did she choose, wild on the loose, ask why

a girl on the loose away

 

The one who, she could run to, we all knew

the one day, she done runway, was to you

She goneway, and we all say, it was you

        

You own what you done that day

We owe what made her runway

Let you run free, not this day

oh me oh my, not this day         

A wild girl, she got lost, on one day

 

We know no excuse forgives

the life that the wild girl lives

but your abuse earns the noose on this day

You’ll hang high and we’ll sway

A wild girl, she was lost, on one day

Kidhood

 

from this week in April, 2016  (I was 71)

 

                  Kidhood

Skating in our socks across a polished floor

we decided what things were for

We could discover a battle shield

in a garbage can cover

Cardboard toboggans raced down grassy hills

Rocks expressed many skills

We saved the age of savage kids

re-inventing civilization everyday

abandoning it each night

when with the bats we took flight

blindly on bikes to improve our sight

Between the invention and the progress

 

from this week in April, 2016  (I was 72)

 

Between the invention and the progress

Is the attention garnered or summoned

Notice taken or called upon

Does the thing take wing

or must it be thrown to be flown

That’s where the other comes into play

Will they get the notion or need promotion

to notice what is new

We think the worth self-evident

but to what we find obvious the other is oblivious

Sure our thoughts will improve their life

they find reconsideration strange

and another change an additional grief

8th in Line

 

Feb 28, 2016 (I was 71)   -

 

         8^th in Line

The product I produced

was a minor attachment

on the assembly line

as the units passed through

at the rate of 150-200 each year

I was responsible for product improvement

Every year an updated application

was integrated into each unit manually

It took 180 to 184 workdays

to complete the process

The applications were complex

designed to fit the individual needs

of diverse units with specifications to be learned

even as they were continually modified

Upon completion the product proceeded

to further facilities before deemed ready

for implementation and use

in careers of service

mostly unknown to me

I have little knowledge

of how effective my installations were

At the end of one another begins

 

Dec. 31, 2016  (I was 71)

 

At the end of one another begins

The leaf falls as the twig buds

Dishes are washed as the meal is prepared

The shooting starts as the truce is signed

The show is over stay tuned for previews

Get dressed and load the wash machine

Just heard taps and they blow assembly

Old acquaintances should be forgot

A new day dawns so like the last

Each growth ring further from the heart wood

The sound of fireworks more distant each new year

What we thought were circles are actually spirals

Old flames merely embers of memory

Smoke swirls out of mind

Other fires are kindled elsewhere

Nothing good has a brain

 

from this week in 2016 (I was 71)

 

Nothing good has a brain

Rocks are wonderful

Wood can be understood

whether it’s alive or dead

Who can doubt a raspberry

off its thorny bush

Some brainless things are bad

but ignorant of the fact

They must be judged by a bad brain

and the judgment affects them not

That with a brain must be evaluated from beyond

by something with a brain or worse

a plan gone terribly wrong

They went to war by choice

from this week in July 2016  (I was 71)

 

    They went to war by choice

to vent and give voice to rant

from a pent violence

They learned to kill

as a matter of will

 

Here’s your boots and how

your weapon shoots

You go to the desert

you dress like dirt

 

They take what they need to succeed

cover their bros’ backs even

when they seldom relax

 

deployed rather than employed

never entreated utilized til depleted

Things blew up technology too

In their minds fuses were lit

 

They took what they need to survive

skills of the will and pills for the pains

Whatever they took they took home

Interrogative

from this week in June, 2016  (I was 71)

                 Interrogative

I think but have not researched the thought

that the question mark is far less used now than in the past

(and the same for auto turn signals) 

It is the implied admission of ignorance

that is so difficult to admit

in this time of adamant declaration 

despite our common condition of uncertainty

regarding the fundamental concerns

(Every turn is a speculation)

Electronic access to preconceived argument

and reply rebuttal or riposte

reduces thought to a duel instead of a construct 

No need for inquiry

(I think I know where I am going)