At Hawthorne's Hearth: A Bonfire of Vanity

Nate the great told many a horrific short story,
this particular one though, not as gory.

'Twas about a great bonfire of his own vanity,
in a tale he ignited with damned Infernal humanity.

The time and place, were are told, both shrouded in haze,
and specifically irrelevant for recounting this great blaze.

So, a weary traveler espies, this intense glowing light,
and is drawn to it, like a moth, blind to personable fright.

Haze of dust and soot circle the pit of this mad pyro place.
Heaps piling up all that remains is a cremated odorous trace.

The materials we collect, amass and one stashes
for later, for greed not need, is reduced to mere ashes.

Both receipts of binding debts and bombast assets-
Both conceits of boastful pride and bashful regrets-

An inquisitive observer, a ticking watch-man,
A weaver of words, the nightmares of Nathan,

Who dreamt of books burning,
seeking his own with yearning.

Everything and All goes on to the raging pyre!
Cauterizing people from their acquired mire!

Stoking and invoking 'The Fire Sermon',
Recalling amnesia through an act of arson,

Smelting the ore of material need,
Any need reduced to basic greed.

This episodic dream penned as Hawthorne's parable,
A rhapsodic rant, worthy of Kant, was truly not so terrible.

With a glimmer of phosphoric radiance,
Reason, Philanthropy, Philosophic brilliance.

And any little idiosyncratic whim Nathaniel should desire,
Nonchalantly gets thrown into the 'Earths Holocaustic' bonfire.



Image of painting by Peder Severin Krøyer [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. "Midsummer Eve, Bonfire on Skagen's Beach" (1906).

Are we speaking the same language?

Haiku VII

What's a meta for?

To build a bridge with nouns like

imagine this thing...

Image of painting by László Mednyánszky (1852-1919), "Forest Creek with a Bridge" [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

I say, Play the Day Away

A kite in free flight, making that happy-flappy sound;

a whirling troop of hula hoops that circle all around,

It's always great to skate, throwing tangerine peels on the ground,

fun races to run around and secret places that will never be found,

all safely hidden in plain sight, just right in the bright outside.

Your nifty Nintendo’s and Hot Cheetos and Spicy Nacho Doritos-

Why the Fi? There’s Stations to Play, I know

X marks the box and aliens to blow-

up a tree? But, you remind me, you have the Wii

to play all sorts of sports and even ski,

right at your fingertips just look at those effortless flips.

Outside where rainbows and sneezes,

show-up, grow-up and blow-up when each randomly pleases.

There's no lags or glitches nor zombies or witches,

no reset, high-score, joysticks, toggles nor switches.

The outdoors is always booted up with no boring buffering,

freezing or crashing, while you sit inside impatiently suffering.

Kids these days.  You should know that just outside that door,

there’s bonus maps, booby traps and endless upgrades galore.

Free tokens and , you can break and re-make all the rules.

Not those old silly dumb games found in schools, how lame!

Make-believe turning fairies into toads, or some girly game

wait-was that inside out, outside in-, err, I will re-begin.

This place you will see, is rated "E", that means Everyone.

Crack open the window, amazed you will be at the fun!

No two times played, no two quests are ever the same.

Every single day you can play, its level you'll never be able to beat,

especially digitally planted behind electronics on your seat.

There’s no need to pout when the electricity’s out,

if you venture outside you’ll find out,

no worries about rolling black-outs of doubt,

the greatest games you’ve never even heard about.


Image By Tangthm (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, Oct. 2010.

"Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks"--Chaucer (c.1343-1400)

Haiku VIII

A cup of JOY spills-

drips over the chalice rim

eternal Spring flows

Image of painting Lilla Cabot Perry (1848-1933), "The cup of knowledge, 1905" [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Duodecimo

I know.

I'm doing it all wrong.

I've likely been doing it wrong

all along.

Then I thought-

could wrong be taught?

Say an Oxymoron

a concept fell up on

Invented by those trustworthy scholars

Juxtaposed and presented by those high collars

A comic tragedy

of innocent dichotomy

Common sense

Present tense

Paradoxical Freedom Requires

Dutiful Experienced Amateurs

Mandatory Volunteerism

Conservative Liberalism

recurrent apathetic desires

passion retardant fires

and necessary luxuries

the minorities priorities

Rightly so

to show

your Blind Faith

In Truth, Things we made up called “words"

honestly are the durned purtiest things I've ever heard.

By Fragonard, Blind Man's Bluff" [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A Spring in my step

Did you see how big the sky was today?
I took particular notice of her limber stretch
and wide grin
Happy and Light in forever blue

I happened by chance to be in a hurry
funny how these things grab you just then
On my way to Nowhere
more important than here

I'm not sure if I should guess
you have these strange long moments too
The air smells like hot Youth
and bottomless Freedom

The tempestuous whisper taps you on the shoulder
a sultry breeze murmurs something in your ear
about having fun
Shhh, your Time is not yet done

Like lust its so hard to refuse
a harmless offer to dance on air
or drown every pore
wrapped in blankets of flowing atmosphere

A smile sneaks up on your face hoping
you don't notice first or ruin it with thinking
Let it Ride at Full Speed Ahead
ringing and singing Hells Bells

I am suddenly parched
by this urge, or maybe a growth spurt
rapid blossoming
Now I understand wildflowers

There is no rhyme
or reason
just appreciating time
noticing I changed with the Season.


Image By Robbins, Ellen, 1828-1905 (artist); L. Prang & Co. (publisher) (Flickr: Wild Flowers No. 2) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Vice versa

Some people say
as the crow flies
to the point, to put it in a direct way
without circular lies

Some such phrases
do not translate
in juxtaposed places
that relate only to the date

Used for reference
time and setting
using inference
for aiding and abetting

By and by
hook and crook
we try and try
to avoid similarities look

Strange as it may sound
replacing new from the old
from Latin I have found
is really the same story told

Used to placate relate and abbreviate
temporal occurrences
another way to plainly state
'panem et circenses'

Things we need to live
laced in lovely distraction
so we can forgive
and forget any minor infraction

Of Justice laced with wheat
the generous goddess of grains Annona
who would never cheat
using her bountiful plains of flora and fauna

Bread and circuses, a tactic to please
what about the Futuere
it's simpler to just appease
with an act, circus, or some such affair

Part of the freakshow or third act
The ringmaster still rules
Bread and circuses from adage to fact
All of us once clowns graduating to fools

And two thousand years later
this archaic Latin term
is apropos even greater
as our society does affirm

You reap what you sow
When in Rome
as the saying does go
There's no place like home

Where two kinds of bribes work best
Games and aesthetics, beauties and the beast
Rule the roost, broody at best, squatting on my chest
For me, these loaves and lullabies sate and soothe me least.

"The human soul needs actual beauty more than bread."
-D.H. Lawerence

First image of painting by Alexander von Wagner (1838-1919), [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. "In the Circus Maximus in Rome".

Second Photo Image By Carpenter (Sergeant), No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. "Animals at War, 1945, Kiri and Many, circus elephants, help clear bomb damage during war in Hamburg".

So far...

Haiku VI

A millennial 

notch on the belt of Venus

under hungry skies

Image by Thomas Bresson [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Girls go to Mars

I need not see to believe-
this presence of Ganymede.
We were led to learn,
our blue planet Earth-
was alone soaking in saltwater.

But you showed yourself-
Ganymede.

I rose early too, like those stargazers,
eager to see what they wanted us to believe
was a Blood Moon-
but she was just blushing,
rosy from her fullness.

Like Eos at Dawn,
there you were again,
in the company of dead poets,
attending the school of contemplation.

Rising first, in rings around dreams,
taking lullaby swings, at gravity-
Who thinks nobody is looking-
thirsting for Truth.

Fixing the future, diving into their divinity,
stuck swimming in the stars;
unable to reconcile, to beguile or even manage
a simple smile to reconcile but choose denial,
Ganymede.

This galactic, Earth-shattering news about Jupiter
Intro-speculative chattering, simply makes me feel stupider

Composed 3/14/15.

Image By NASA/JPL (Ganymede's Trailing Hemisphere) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.  

A Spot of Sage and Mint-Tea

Haiku V
The only advice
We should heed or ever need
is "We too Shall Pass".













Image information: from Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain By Valentin Bousch: 

“English: The Prophet Isaiah. 1530. This window comes from a series of seven windows made for the choir of the Benedictine priory church of Saint-Firmin in Flavigny-sur-Moselle in the Lorraine region of France. Bousch was occupied by the Flavigny-sur-Moselle project in the early 1530s. Three of the extant monumental windows from the series each bear a date (1531, 1532 and 1533). Together, the windows presented a Biblical narrative reflecting the story of humanity, starting with the Creation and Fall of Man (now in a private collection, Langley, British Columbia), then consecutively depicting the Deluge (MMA 17.40.2a-r), Moses presenting the tablets of Law (MMA 17.40.1a-r), the Nativity or Annunciation at the east end (lost), the Crucifixion (Saint Joseph's church, Stockbridge, Mass.), the Resurrection or the Supper at Emmaus (lost) and, finally, the Last Judgement (lost). This medallion, together with the medallion of Moses (MMA 17.40.4) and the two medallions with the Craincourt and Savigny arms (MMA 17.40.5,6), was originally part of the window from the set depicting the Creation and Fall of Man (now in a private collection, Langley, British Columbia), inscribed with the date 1533; a drawing in Nancy, Bibliothèque municipale (Fonds Abel, carton 152), records the complete window intact in the priory church of Saint-Firmin before it was sold.”

Fish & Chips

There are many fish in the sea

but none exactly quite like me

Not one true carbon copy.

No nanotech cloning imagery.

Our markings are masterfully made

schooled in survival, games well played

decisions and debts to be made, repaid

resoled, rebooted,

eyes on tails

follow ink splotched surging trails

dreaming afloat where freedom sails.

Migrating maps pre-installed, recalled

streams of consciousness, or so-called

evolution, defragging currently stalled

in sleep-state.

Compress and refract by

blue chip, red chip, intelli-chip hacked,

flowing, downloading, backing-up tracts

for holograms in fact-

particulate of calcium carbonate,

brackish, choking, saline tracing, mineral state.

Four-going feets and fins of fate

sedated intoxicated waste-

carried along ripping liquid lies enmeshed in

holy nets, trawling along with severed ties and

anchored ambivalently under horizontal blue skies

and producing the Lowest Common Diatom

there can Be with so much salt. 

Composed 3/14/15.

Image of painting by Herbert James Draper (1910) "Flying fish" [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

FOUND! Gain's Partner-Will Accept Reward!

Why would you want to know- you couldn't guess

that this Pain is about to win.

Despite all my acute mental prowess,

I shall soon be defeated, I confess my sin.

I'm calling my own bluff,

I'm not strong enough.

Its unassailable relentless wrath,

grabbing and slashing from inside,

on its unforgiving hell-bent path,

leaving little me nowhere to hide.

I'm calling my own bluff,

I'm not strong enough.

From the vengeance deemed I am due,

as this sentence, to life, and all thereafter-

shall not pass as easy or quietly true.

My organs chortle, gurgle, cackle in mock laughter.

I'm calling my own bluff,

I'm not strong enough.

Not on my side-

without symptoms, forecasts, or warning,

I nearly died.

It was a calm early morning.

Now I wrestle with my watch.

Staring at its face, watching and winding.

Turning and winding up the senses a notch.

The old me painfully minding...

I've met its partner Gain-

although I cannot recall

how to get in touch without the aid of Pain,

a burden on hold, a stall, a trip to fall.

I'm calling my own bluff,

I'm not strong enough.

On my battered behalf of fragility,

beaten into heavy submission,

a memento in futility,

severed fibers corroded by contrition.

Senselessly stalking it lurks,

in many minutes for granted, in the idle hour-

it’s coup in the works

Pain without Gain is killing my power…

I'm calling my own bluff,

I'm not strong enough.

Turning me inside out,

I would never want you to understand

how much company of Pain I can keep or without-

a sound, painted a smile, with a sleight of hand…

I stopped calling, I answered stronger,

I decidedit won't be killing me any longer.

See Pain has no mind-

and neither should you-

but if you find

this other of the two

(although you have it made and are not apt to exchange)

I advise, I implore, you to keep yours,

I plead for you to take heed, don’t trade

or swap, barter or lend by standards or poors

keep your gain and your sweet lemonade.

Image By Guillaume Duchenne, 1872, "for Charles Darwins chronology of facial expressions and emotions of man and animals" [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Looking to score a mentor

Haiku IIII

WANTED: A Pound for

an Eliot, can't pay more

than a nickel a notion

Image via Wikimedia Commons, c. 1944 from North American Aviation, cartoon drawing, Robert F. Yonash.

I'm in the din

The peace and quiet,

of sweet retreat,

costs a pretty penny,

                      know those who buy it.

I used to live next door to the Pacific Ocean,

she's a tranquil sea with moody tides.

Lullabies of foam white noise,

                       swirled in predictable motion.

Humbly not in a castle or large house surrounded

by sand and fog, but a boxy cubby with holes,

for the salty air to settle in,

                        knuckled undertow and pounded out.

The street grime, all the passers by,

dog walkers, perverted gawkers

linger in the marine air- over there where

                         pteradactyles in vees fly high.

Now, dwelling in the neighborhood,

the freeway hum, and soft suburban strum,

gives the beat of the civil street-

                         moving was good for us.

But a new boisterous big band

plays this bouncing barrio cacophony

from squeals to words next door, grows the baby-

                         each side stoic fences watch.

Hidden outside in backyard nooks,

under the bamboo pergola, behind the garage,

the short STOP sign was here when we moved,

                            perched in peace where no one looks.

The train blares through the solitude,

left on time, right on schedule,

a siren wails in urgence, whoop-whoop the cop

                             car cheers in calm pursuit.

Busy builders compose machines,

climbing roller-coaster, screaming gears,

out front a concert speaker rolls by,

                               dimmed by security screens.

Chalkboard scraped shrillness,

rings, beeps, tweets, buzzers,

crunching, growling, laughing, crying,

                                 alert to dying in all this blissful stillness.

My volume button broke,

listening to folk voices of vagrancy,

echo emptily, ringing in my head,

"No one's home," I said.

Image by By Ford Madox Brown illustrating a scene from Shakespeare's King Lear, "Lear and Cordelia",  (1849-54) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Haven't I seen you somewhere before

The soul divided
Twice undone
to the power of one
made whole by reflection

The moment of the shortest light
Good and Evil ebbs and flows
in the Noon and Midnight glows
your shadow hides, refusing to pose

You are still the same You
even as you grow and change
recognizing your old self as strange

A reunion of sorts
to meet in the middle
of life, like solving a riddle
reminding one of deja vu a little

Don't be afraid to peer deeply
past the pane, into the windows of the soul
while reciting the rote lines of your role
Acting like still life takes its mindless toll

Notice the view as you climb
Up, or don't and stay the same
but you cannot blame
your over elevated aim

Running into yourself
after all these years
no longer judged by your peers
or motivated by fears

Easily spooked, a sketchy outline
of who you really are
now grown older and traveled afar
mapped and trapped by your own falling star.



Image By Harrison Weir (1824-1906) "Reflection" [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ode to a Comma

As one like you can surely tell,
a poet uses new and old words quite well

Tho' this is not about the poet that is me
'Tis a tribute to a little mark-you'll see

Of course reading certain words can make magic
Or their arrangement can prove to be quite tragic

Placed in such precarious ways
deciphering both what and how it says

since this symbolic form of communication
is not simply a mere matter of translation

Language is omnisciently living
Poetry is an expression of giving

Words in their proper form and place
Dependent on others, used in a certain case

But the power of a quiet comma-
(O The sheer drama!)

It's an Order, telling you to wait-
hanging below the surface, like dangling bait

(If you may wonder why can't we use more than one
in a row, it's the sound of panting after a run
that is how that's done
and to read that would be fun
for both nary and no one)

Admit it, even a serial comma sounds a bit scary
it has me shaking in my Oxfords' a fright wary

'Tis all this blatant punctuation abuse
(O all the overt dis-obeyance and misuse!)

Yet, let us never forget
we owe the comma a great debt

For the comma controls and catches and releases your breath
It's diligent appearance delays the death

of a single, stretched and solitary sentence
that goes on and on with a vacuous vengeance.



I came across this article "Going, Going, And Gone?" by Linda Holmes on NPR after writing this poem-actually, while posting it, and found it to be thoroughly a very entertaining read! Witty, refreshingly honest and literally, no, poetically well written.  

Image By Historic American Engineering Record, Tim Whitely "Trolling illustration"[Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Parades in March

The sun rises

as the rain 

falls

harder

breaking the dawn

with angry gray

For-

To:

day

Image By Jon Sullivan [Public domain] "Palm trees in the morning", via Wikimedia Commons. 

Eyeless in Gaza PII: The Peaces of the Pi per Aldous Huxley

The following is a passage cited from the novel "Eyeless in Gaza", by Aldous Huxley (p.471,72) which I have also (see PI) converted into a poem for its natural prosaic eloquence on immaterial matters such as attempting to describe "peace".

United in peace.
In peace,
he repeated,
in peace, in Peace.
In the depth of every mind,
Peace
The same space for all,
continuous between
mind and mind
At the surface,
the separate waves,
the whirlpools, the spray;
but below them
the continuous and undifferentiated expanse of the sea,
becoming calmer
as it
deepens,
till at last there is an absolute stillness...

Dark peace
in the depths.

A dark peace
that is the same for all who can
descend
to
it.

Peace, that by a strange paradox
is the substance and source of the storm at the surface.

Born of peace,
the waves yet destroy peace; destroy it,
but are necessary;
for without the storm
on the surface
there would be no existence,
no knowledge of goodness,
no effort to allay the leaping frenzy of evil,
no rediscovery of the underlying calm,
no realization that
the substance of the frenzy,
is the same as
the substance of Peace.
Frenzy of evil and separation.
In Peace there is Unity.
Unity with other lives.
Unity with all Being.

Freedom from Truth.
The truth of unity.

Peace in the profound subaqueous night,
Peace in this silence,
this still emptiness
where there is no more time,
where there are no more images,
no more words...


Image of painting by Marcus Larson (1825-1864) "Stormy Sea" (1857) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Eyeless in Gaza PI: The Theoretical Unity of Aldous Huxley

"8th Root of Unity"

Image By MarekSchmidt (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The following is a passage cited from the novel "Eyeless in Gaza", by Aldous Huxley (p.467,68) which I have converted into a poem for its elegance in deciphering the properties, proportions, perspective(s) on the concept of Unity (as a whole/hole). 

The unity of life.

Unity demonstrated even in the destruction of one life by another.

Life and all being are one.

Otherwise

No living thing could derive sustenance

from another 

Or from the unliving substances 

around it.

One

(even in destruction),

One

(in spite of separation).

Each organism is unique.

Unique and yet

United

with all other organisms

in the sameness of its ultimate parts;

Unique above

a substratum of mental identity.

Identity and Interchangeableness

of Love, Trust, Courage.

Fearless affection 

restores the lunatic to sanity,

transforms the hostile savage into a friend,

tames the wild animal.

The mental pattern of Love 

can be transferred from one mind to another

and still

retain its virtue...

And not only Love,

but Hate as well:

not only Trust, but suspicion;

not only kindness, generosity and Courage,

but also

malevolence and greed and fear.

Reality of unity,

but equal reality of division-

greater reality, indeed,

of division.