Relay racing

Pluto is not a planet.
The atom cannot be cut.
The moon is not cheese.
Stars do not fall in order
to make our wishes come true.
Lightning strikes wherever the hell it feels like lashing out.
Tooth fairies are Bone Collectors-specifically
employed by the American Credit Counsel for Est. Wants and Greeds
otherwise, controlling the supply and demand for our Ivory Towers.
And, we all know now that Columbus was lost,
Not just directionally challenged.
Native doesn’t mean ‘Here First’,
it means ‘Grows Wild’.
Weather was never an omen
forecasting results of the battle between
Man and (his) Nature. It just is.
Women are naturally gifted in Sciences such as;
Biology & Psychology.
Men possess many gifts they will be glad to tell you all about.
Men may cry. Women may murder.
The Human Genome Project collapsed
in the storm of clones.
The Brain Maps that intended to carve a path for AI,
got us lost somewhere between the formula and the fractal.
The last one left was the hen.
The race was over
before the starting gun was fired at Heaven
and the sky began raining steel
in sharp scraps of twisted space junk.
Gravity, being the weak force that it is,
cannot uphold Truth
against the atmosphere we have made
Here.
it must be okay
to come in last
because we finished

in the first place. 

Painting By Paul Louis Martin des Amoignes (1858–1925) (Bonhams) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Teach her

There was something of a

learning curve

that resembled the arc of an eyebrow

hoisted in intrigue

as though there were more connections

to be made, fine hairs to grow

to bring a-round

complete insight

from the pupils center.


Art by Alphonse Legros c. 1949 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

History v.1,792

        What if we learned our lessons backward

instead of ignoring what lies ahead,

would we start at the end and dig ourselves out

from there

or is Here too near to Now to know?

What if we learned language primary by poetry,

as in, taught this way, 

if we made an educated guess 

we would we think more

if we understood less.

And what about what the ocean says, its native 

cetaceans, their migrations…adaptations.

We would find a place 

in their tragic tales, perchance

see ourselves in the eyes on fish tails,

mermaids and white whales.

Yes, hard to translate

some things don't

clearly. 

Well,

what if we listened harder to things that seem

indistinct,

do you think we could hear the earth exhale 

say deep in sleep, could we focus then

on the multiverse-

But here we are fracking up.

Waiting for a guide out of some terrestrial curse.

Would it be worse

to know we were too little to hold on?

We have cumulatively uncovered

more historically,

we have yet to discover

meaning,

we barely understood

what all of this implied-

No 

Time to speculate

about Grand New Beginnings 

By starting at the infinite Endings...

After all, how could History be 

far too long ago and have not nearly enough

relevance or reverence for Us

by glaring reflection,

with Us reminiscing about the great old days

adding and adorning, making the old new.  

We like changing the story as we go,

we can know just enough 

to make it up

to you.

True-

with no good place to start

chaos will return,

before it was missed. 

Our Resilience is rote,

Granted,

we have witnessed starting over

and elliptical orbits

again and again.

And I insist, as the diluted optimist,

we are still learning

on a curve,

spilling as we spin.  

Shall we take it from the top?

Painting By Joshua Reynolds [Public domain], Fine Arts Museum in Argentina via Wikimedia Commons.

It's Who and What you Know (about them)

We know more about people we've never known than ever before.

Before now, you did not know who you did not know,

and who you knew mattered mainly to you 

and only those who knew you

mattered more.

More than ever 

whatever you think is known. 

They know you 

and know what you think, or think they do.

They do know more than ever, 

not about what they know, but about what others think they know.

They think they know something about whatever, 

and whatever they think they know 

is something to think about. 

The ones that now think they know you, you need not think you know, 

even though they think you know you know them.

Think about how we know more now than ever before

about people

and maybe people are still learning.

Maybe learning 

whatever others think isn't knowing anything.

Knowing anything is better than not knowing what you know.

Is that what people think? I don't know.

You know, without knowing anything about you, 

I bet you know more about me than me...

who knows nothing and nobody 

ever more than ever before.

Painting by Abraham Solomon (1854), [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Lesson 1: Nature and the Soupman

Travel back to your first lesson
taught by Mother Nature.
When you learned
your parents were not the only
nor the best
teachers
about life.

We went camping,
my parents, their friends, Hercules-the dog.
We'd go to the Russian River
where there were no campsites-
you sight your spot and camp-
if you like.

They would drink and fish,
and drink like fish,
and more-it was the eighties.
Their friend, 

a man called Kevin Soupman
was fishing near me
when he caught a rainbow
trout.

He held it across both his hands,
it was shiny, slimy and squirmy-

the things kids like.
Moments later,
he said he had something for me.
He told me to hold out the palm
of my hand.
I did, eagerly.

In it,
he placed a crimson pebble.
It rolled a moment
as I tried to see it more closely
then it settled in the evening sun-
(un)still

throbbing and beating its inner drum.
Thus,

Nature and the Soupman
taught me
all I needed to know
about heartlessness.


Image By Ken Hammond / USDACornischong at lb.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.

The lessons taut

“Surfing with Jesus”

the sign read

in front of the Pilgrim Church

across from the high school.

Not the Mormon one

across the parking lot

on the other street
with the lemonade stand

and portable orange bibles

towering high.

A teenage boy with earbuds

sits at the bus stop

smoking and snarling

waiting insecurely

to be picked up

or to be saved.

The bell has not yet rung.

Image By Hogyn Lleol at English Wikipedia (Self made by Hogyn Lleol) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Published in the 2017 Magee Park Poets Anthology.

Sol Ascent

Learning is a peak, 

an ascending effort to change the view

expansive and panoramic, uncontained

by what is beyond being seen

from where you stand.

Discovery starts as a reaching sapling 

rewarded for breaking through the mire

by having its roots wrenched with envy,

a weed nestled in the woods

for resting, not reminding. 

Education is an island destination,

whose currents carved defenses

guarded by volcanic concepts,

corralling massive schools

in warm biodiverse cesspools.

Knowing is weather, temporal conditions

the subject of changing you, today

being prepared for the unpredictable;

knowledge wields power like a lever,

breaking in or out, the damage is done.

All the while we keep seeking

views we would rather lose,

the forest for its functionality,

learning the leaves, one believes

knowledge is a plucked flower.

All in reliance upon the Sun

whose punctured question 

marks the sky, answering all 

wisdom reaps its reward 

in the warm gift of a lonely smile. 

Image By Hillebrand Steve, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.