I have never had a human Master

 

January 30, 2014  (I was 69)  

 

I have never had a human Master

or I have had a failure of recognition

I have had inspiring teachers of particular knowledge

None with an overall conceptual guidance

to which I could commit adherence

Any who assumed that elevation soured within me

The submission was distasteful the creed questionable

I have found serene paths among masterful trees

stone thrones from which to contemplate

Wind fills and drums the lungs

gives voice to tree and every aspect of geography

Birds offer the element of inquiry

The message is of the moment and present situation

The promise is of continuance but not of eternity

 

Heroes write in second person

 

December 20, 2010  (I was 65)

 

Heroes write in second person

so you can imagine you are they

and they can imagine they are humble

 

It also allows a little fudge on the truth

If there’s a bit of hyperbole here

and some ameliorating there

 

it was you who thought it

and you going through this who did it

I wrote it exactly as you said

 

it’s up to you to decide

whether it’s undeclared biography

or personification of the fictive truth

 

Whew

 

from this week in December, 2019  (I was 75) 

 

         Whew

We work so hard to deify

the source of our belief

and as well to damnify

to bring our opposer grief

 

What we know we know so well

that any others belong in hell

We steal the truth like any thief

clap the sin from our hands in relief

It is not that prayers go unanswered

 

December 10, 2019  (I was 75)

 

It is not that prayers go unanswered

but most often the answer is No

Not spoken emphatically but in tacit practice

Answered prayers so rare as to be

not miracles but fallen to the realm of coincidence

Unanswered prayers so numerous as to defy odds

randomness descending to inevitability

The fate of the lucky is to be doomed another day

often a matter of congenital circumstance

idealistic advice

 

December 3, 1979  (I was 35)   

 

         idealistic advice

In civil protest sit in silence

weep at the outrage of your indignity

weep at the violence done to your person

do not resist force

disperse when displaced

or proceed to prison calmly

If you are assured of a hearing voice

speak your cause clearly

If you are not heard

save your own life

get out of prison

and live where you can

as long as you can

My good friend was eaten by an allegory

 

from this week in 2010  (I was 66)

 

My good friend was eaten by an allegory

I don’t put animals into fables

I do not construct allegories around them

I’d never characterize a person as an animal

unless to insult them

Neither do I humanize beasts

unless to insult them

I’d rather not invite another specie across my doorstep

 

Considered before sleep

 

from this week in November, 2015   (I was 71)

 

        Considered before sleep

Avoided Nam being young and dumb

student deferment through ’66

Graduated married a teacher a father

classified exempt until the lottery

Then turned twenty-six too old to be taken

reached a militarily untrainable age

locked in my recalcitrant ways

Dumb luck the smartest thing I did

The DELETE is the great key to success

 

November 26, 2013  (I was 69) 

 

The DELETE is the great key to success

it sends the highlighted mess to cyberspace

Errant thought and sloppy construction

erased without scar or cover-up

Physical ineptitude of fingers keyboard

mistakes that multiply in the awshit of their discovery

Gone with a single stroke

A little light above the heavy curtain of the confessional

changed from red to green upon your exit

to indicate unoccupied but to me a symbolic message Go

Proceed With A Clean Slate

even though I never believed it true 

I believe the DELETE

An hour later in the street I don’t remember

the ill-conceived foolishness and there is no evidence

of damage nor inkling of wrong-doing

If in the life of bricks and blood

a touch of the REGRET upon mindful memories

could restore the mindless innocence

which preceded our momentary ignorance

I would be willing to recall and relate

every awfuck revelation that occurs to me

All the storybook lives are not in storybooks

 

November 24, 2012  (I was 68)

 

All the storybook lives are not in storybooks

The ones that are will fit into movies

whose conventional length has shrunk in my lifetime

from two hours to ninety minutes or less

a reduction of twenty-five percent

while life span has increased considerably

and we think more complexly so

there ought to be material for more involved

story-book lives in multifaceted detail

but we think we’ve seen it all

know how it should end

don’t like it when it doesn’t

like in our own lives

where heroes are as ambiguous as the side they’re on

Common local villainy is inconspicuous

lost among our blatant international piracies

in explosive color and surround sound

a cover-up on an epic scale

A half century is a blink of an eye

 

from this week in November, 2017  (I was 73)

 

A half century is a blink of an eye

same old catcher in the same old rye

shots still fired in downtown Dallas

same old hatred same old malice

Took a road less traveled and forsaken

wish it had been the one not taken

the one called Hope to a land called Promised

to lay by still waters where breezes are warmest

but we rode the bullets down the cross-haired sight

to end somewhere else than we thought we might

One learns the rules of the games

 

from this week in November, 2019  (I was 74)

 

One learns the rules of the games

most common to the region

fields arenas or stadia

casino tables and race tracks

Games about winning require deception

How much can I get away with

It takes more skills than game skills

subterfuge something under the table

city council and Chamber of Commerce

subtle maneuvers and crass power grabs

psychological chicanery extortion

Stock market or bowling

It’s all about the roll over

How big are your balls

What we have we have to give

 

from this week in October, 2006  (I was 61)

 

What we have we have to give

Greed is a seed that will not digest

No platitude can survive

the cynical appetite of gluttony

We eat each other out of fear

that we will be eaten

 

What value resides in the currency of the past

A few collectors pay quaint dollars

for essays on morality

written a hundred fifty years ago

when the land on which we stand

knew no one like us

 

The dream the adult tries to realize

is out of date before the attempted fact

before the bewildered eyes of his child

to whom the symbolism is obscure

The context inaccessible

as stilted dialogue from an old movie

 

Better to offer the silence

hidden beneath all our progress

in the depths of a cave or mineshaft

or under the weight of water

or within the darkness of space

unoccupied and un-interpreted

If you work hard at having a peaceful life

 

October 18, 2017  (I was 72)

 

If you work hard at having a peaceful life

work through conflict with compromise

sell at a fair price and buy at the same

give away knowledge for friendship

praise skill wherever you encounter it

try to find comfort in humility

recognize the grief in others’ loss

share what you have before it spoils

make no commitments you cannot keep

fulfill promises with dedicated effort

your life will lack the drama people read about

and you’ll be granted the joys of anonymity

by other anonymous persons

 

Mutual Mute-tation

 

October 16, 2010  (I was 65)

 

         Mutual Mute-tation

When you reach an age

they stop letting you change

Suggestions are treated with silent suspicion

Ideas encounter silence

and rebound through the mind

that no longer exists in any changeable way

You know they are thinking more

of what they will do

when they no longer have to be silent

So act alone on the changes you suggest

and learn to suggest them silently

you goddamn right I’ve got questions

 

from this week in September, 1973  (I was 28)

 

you goddamn right I’ve got questions

I got a hell of a lot of questions

I collected so many

I don’t need answers any more

I just gotta learn to weave baskets

be concerned with dying cane

meshing those fibers into self-container

a gift made to be placed upon a shelf

a quiet duck upon a still pond

If he flashes white under wing

he will rise and be gone

the reeds lean together

the rhythmic quilt of intersecting ripples

reflects the image of a dissolving cloud

I have not had abiding compassion

 

from this week in 2014  (I was 69)

 

I have not had abiding compassion

for animals.  It has been my culture

to eat them.  I do not care to

make the distinction between

food and pet, so I tend to avoid

the concept of pet when I can.

If I were even present at the

slaughtering, I would eat less flesh

or learn to respectfully participate in

the practice.  What is the stewardship

of the elect in the kingdom?  It has

been to eat without reproach or

consideration.  It is the consideration

creates the question.

The politician is no artist

 

from this week in August, 1972  (I was 27)

 

The politician is no artist

expediency does not allow it

he is in a hurry

between Fairbanks and Little Rock

he has airplane disorientation

as he reads speeches written by a man

who used to be a switchboard operator

 

His thoughts no longer mix with his dreams

as he drifts slowly conscious this morning

examining sunlit greens upon trees.

 

He is awake already

organizing and plotting with top advisors

He has the computed pulse consensus

the voting public opinion upon the key issues

The speech writer is busy he types

 

This is a man of the people

or a man of a sizeable percentage

He does TV commercials for us

 

Spread the margarine become a king

Drop bread in the toaster

Vote for him and hope he’ll remember

once he gets to sleep in November

that virtuosity opens opportunity for art

 

Hard to have a small meal when you’re hungry

 

August 13, 2017   (I was 72)

 

Hard to have a small meal when you’re hungry

still hungry after the meal and blaming the one

who gave you a small meal when you were hungry

and both knowing they had more to give

After they were not hungry they had leftovers

which they kept for themselves while you were still hungry 

Those who gave you none lost to your thoughts

while the ones who gave you some seem somehow

the ones who created your hunger

Rough Riders

 

July 10, 2006  (I was 61)

 

         Rough Riders

They were oh so stoic

and acknowledged no pain

When shot numerous times

instead begged pardon

for causing inconvenience

Or openly walking the front lines

spun dead from a bullet to the mouth

while professing invincibility

confirming a manhood

first won killing bloodthirsty Apaches

deranging criminals as Texas Rangers

ridding the plains of buffalo

quarterbacking Yale

crewing with Columbia

or serving as assistant secretary of the navy

They fought alongside and proudly

with warrior survivors they called native Americans

and blacks who could follow but could not lead

and ore prospectors with no prospects

for any adventure better than this one

now that domestic adventure

had been fenced into reservations

Government banned the vigilante at home

but eagerly employed the mercenary abroad

No god ever stated his will

 

July 8, 2004  (I was 59) 

No god ever stated his will

nor instructions for mankind

in any book composed by man

All inspiration for any written word

is as sacred as any other

Any claims of divine right

to truth to land to favoritism

or future promise are false

Ordination of things to come  

are fabrications of ego

as are claims of doing god’s work

Faith is the tool by which some impose belief

when rational argument fails

Ritual is the glue of reinforced unity

To use god as justification

for ideology or action or restriction

is a manifestation of greed

Reasons for adopting civil behavior

are more immediate than eternal payoffs