Sun and Shadows

“There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.”

--Albert Camus 

Sun and Shadows

Unless the landscape is barren,

A wasteland without anything,

The sun will always cast shadows;

Light will always forsake something.

Something will be left the in the shade

And will lack illumination.

It will be dark, cold and alone,

Left outside of our attention. 

Do we want that empty landscape?

Desolate, absent any landmark; 

Not even a cactus in sight. 

Do we want emptiness so stark? 

Something so empty and so dead: 

No mountains, no buildings, no clouds.

Can we even live in that space?

How can we survive on those grounds?

With the sun must come shadows,

Since we need more than light to live. 

Clouds must bring their rain to the soil, 

So it will sustain and can give. 

After the light of day comes night. 

A more desolate time for sure, 

But the rest it brings is needed:

To reflect. to grow, as a cure.

We always need the sun to shine,

Because of all the good it brings. 

But, we also need some shadows

And the rest that the nighttime brings. 

Choice: Word, Voice, Thoughts

Choice: Word, Voice, Thoughts

Your own words;
Your own voice;
Your own thoughts:
Choice, choice, choice.

Words
Don’t repeat,
Word for word,
Someone else.
That’s absurd.

Copied words
Are just noise:
More echoes,
Nothing wise.

Voice
Your sound must
Resonate;
It must give
Your words weight:

Give heft and
Frequency
To what you
Strive to be.

Thoughts
What you forge
In your mind,
When noise is
Left behind.

That is what
You must say;
What your words
Must display.


Dig down deep
In your soul;
That should be
Your end goal.

Dissolution, Time

 Dissolution, Time

Today is quite clearly today:
Haven’t completely lost my mind.
But, what day of the month it is,
I have to check my phone to find.

That number quickly slips away;
Meaningless, it just doesn’t stick.
Numeric and in a timeline,
In that system it’s just a brick.

I am outside of that system:
Have I been abandoned by it?
Was it I that abandoned it?
Or did I, without willing it?

The system of the flow of time:
Each day and event in its time;
Everything of significance,
Falls into a meter and rhyme.

It’s not one we have created.
Not contrived; it’s what’s natural.
Not some scheme to come out on top;
What is just here: the factual.

But uncertainty, stress, chaos…
These take us out of our ‘nature,’
Or break it so we have no home.
They destroy our place and stature.

They make us creatures so broken,
That the flow of time is not ours.
It is an alien concept:
All the years, days, weeks and the hours.

With no unity, what is time?
What happens and when, is not real.
It seems all made up on a whim,
By the choice of a spinning wheel.

And why should we remember things,
If they are all random and chance?
Remember or not, there’s no point;
Nothing to better or enhance.

Timelines and time itself dissolve,
In chaos and uncertainty.
They serve no practical purpose;
Knowing has no utility.

Panic, Disorder

Panic, Disorder

That feeling of being on fire,
But burning under your skin.
Other times your marrow boiling,
Boiling from the outside in.

That panic from down deep within:
Won’t take control, though it can…
Makes you totally insane, but…
Won’t let you play the madman.

Your head on a well-greased swivel.
Eyes wide, darting everywhere.
But it’s almost in slow motion,
Crippled by paranoid ‘care.’

The world fades and retreats from you,
Taking all its weight, meaning.
While no-thing things rush and crowd in:
Chaos that’s suffocating.

Floating deep inside the river;
Going so quickly downstream…
Too worried about the waterfall
To try to swim, breath or scream.

When the Prophets Hide

When the Prophets Hide

Shave my head,
Sackcloth and ashes…
Feeling so dead,
As our life crashes.

Worlds collide,
And meaning is lost.
The prophets hide;
They can’t risk the cost.

Where angles
Will not even glance,
Our fate dangles;
We must take the chance.

All to lose,
And little to gain.
What we can choose,
Won’t avoid the pain.

We can’t win,
Just hedge our loses.
We can prevail,
Bearing our crosses.

What we hold
Deep down in our souls,
Is what we hold
Not to lose our souls.

It is not about
Being in the right.
It’s not just about,
Who will win the fight.

It’s about
Standing tall,
And walking on.

It’s about--
Fly or fall—
Passing it on.

BS

BS

Here holding court,
Covered in ash.
All on credit.
Never pay cash.

The world gone mad.
The world? Or I?
Should I just laugh?
Or should I cry?

What I see clear,
As through clean glass,
They see only,
In shards of glass.

Finding the rhyme
In the reasons;
As the weather
Follows seasons.

Wasting my time,
Calling Bullshit.
For one reason:
To shoot the shit.

Lost, These Days

Lost, These Days

“Oh, these kids these days.”
That old, well-worn phrase.

From every generation,
We hear this lamentation.

“This will not end well!
It’s all gone to hell!

The certainty of decline;
How we offend the divine.

But where’s the devil?
Not on our level.

Have we fallen below him?
Have we gone to black from dim?

Always, it’s the end,
Just around the bend.

Things have never been this bad;
Worse prospects, we’ve never had.

But what will become of us?
In the dark, so lost.
Will time damn or save us?
Are all our hopes lost?

And Again, Be Men

 And Again, Be Men

“Soothing, like a carefully 

folded ham sandwich.”*  

Simile? Analogy? 

Makes no difference which.

These days, all the mongering

Is post-literate. 

They misunderstand the text,

Though they can read it.

Not even misunderstand;

No real approach.

Just throw enough of a glare,

To crush with reproach. 

Take people and attack them,

Like simple strawmen; 

When they are marionettes… 

Pretend supermen. 

People’s heads all filled with straw. 

“Burn! Burn it all out!” (They shout.)           

They shout ,condemn and then pout,

Without any doubt.

And, that is where we all are:

People are just tools, 

To bring to life ideas. 

All just useful fools.

But it’s their headpieces that,

Are filled all with straw. 

That need to be emptied out,

With a red hot bough.

And then with clean and clear heads,

we can start again.

To approach and to read things,

And again be men.

    

*Samuel Beckett from Dante… Bruno. Vico.. Joyce

The Blue of Dawn

The Blue of Dawn
 
The dark blue of dawn--
Not of bruises or night--
Speckled with stars fading.
A blue that says, you’re alright.
 
You made it through the dark,
Though you didn’t get to sleep.
The light might bring some rest,
And your mind you might just keep.

Hopeless

Hopeless
 
No one is nothing.
Everyone is something.
But, the nothingness
Is so pervasive.
 
The meaninglessness,
And its restlessness…
So promiscuous,
That we are useless.
 
What can help us?
What god can save us?
Must it be a god?
Are we that hopeless?

Life Is Exhausting

 Life: It is Exhausting

Life: It is exhausting. 

But, if we aren’t alive,

What use is energy?

First, and most, to survive. 

If we are not starving, 

Then we can consider

How to use resources

To make life less bitter. 

To save energy, 

Means we have a surplus, 

Or that we can make one:

More than enough for us. 

What’s more than enough?

When are we satisfied?

What does it mean to need?

Less than what is supplied?

The goal of life?

At base, it’s to survive. 

If that just exhausts us, 

Then we can’t hope to thrive. 

There is no way to thrive, 

If we don’t first survive. 

Don’t lament exhaustion:

Struggle to survive and thrive. 

Brain Numb

 Brain Numb

Fuck the oppressed!

Forget the downtrodden!

Who is to say, 

That the poor are less rotten?

In decadence:

The rich are so stupid.

But, who can say,

Poor qua poor aren't stupid?

Hand full of one...

Fist full of the other...

One is harder,

But truth is not power. 

Nor vice versa:

Power is not truth.

Well, not always.

The same is true of youth.

Truth and power...

The rich, poor, smart and dumb...

None are the best.

To think so is brain numb. 

We Stand!

 

We Stand!
(A rant with line breaks)
 
We stand:
To wait in line…
To let people past
            In the theater…
And some of us
            To pee…
We stand for Ukraine!
 
We stand:
To wait in what line?
            The line to get a gun?
            The line to get into Poland?
                        No not us.
 
We stand:
            To let Russian tanks pass?
            To piss on the Russians?
                        (But I am sure they have raincoats.)
 
We stand:
            And the Russians stand
                        In lines
                        At the banks.
                            What a shame and torture!
 
We stand:
            For racism…
                        Apparently…
                        If we don’t stand
                        For what ‘The Times’ wants.
 
We stand:
            In what lines?
            In what peril?
            In what country?
                        And on what border?
                                    So far away.
                                               But: We stand!
 
We stand:
            In our football stadiums…
            In our free streets…
            In our banks full of cash…
            In our homes…
                        Warmed by their gas.
 
We stand:
            In silence…
            In solidarity?
            That says next to nothing…
            And does even less.
 
Don’t just stand there!
            Do something!
Sanction and speak…
Warn and chastise…
Send aid,
            That may never get there.
            That makes us feel better.
 
We stand!
As:
    Planes can fly…
    Bombs can drop…
                        And explode!
    Missiles can fly…
    Guns can shoot…
                        As people crouch
                                    Lay down…
                                    Run…
As we stand!
 
We stand…
            Is that better:
                        Then speaking loud,
                        And doing nothing?
 
We stand…
            Does that deflect bullets?
            Does it stop bombs?
                        As we talk on and on…
 
Standing isn’t
            Complicity
            Or aid
                To those that act, attack.
But it isn’t much more.
It is…
            Virtue and vitriol…
            But little more.
It is…
            A spine,
                        That carries no weight,
                        That stands up to nothing.
 
We may cry and scream:
            As we stand,
            In our safe space…
            Our warm homes,
                        Way over here.
 
Oh fuck it!
            Half blind
            And hundreds of miles away…
            How dare I say anything!
            Aside from throwing shame
                        And screaming “NO!”
I should keep my mouth shut…
            And stand.
 
What do I know?
As I look into the eyes…
    Of students
    Who fought in a war
    Not yet two years ago.
 
They stood!
They stood next to 5000+
            Who cannot stand now.
And the world didn’t stand with them…
            Not then or now.
            It didn’t even see them.
 
They stood:
            On the lands of their ancestors…
            For democracy…
            For self-determination…
            Against ethnic cleansing…
            Against genocide,
                        Both contemporary,
                        And historical.
 
They stood on legs…
            Crippled by your need
                    for oil and gas.
 
They stood on legs…
            Crippled by your ignorance,

            And indifference.

 
They stood on land
Obscured and poisoned
            By the ignorance
            And impotence
                        Of international “law.”
 
They stood…
            And many died,

                            And were tortured,

                                And even beheaded. 

So stand…
            In your football stadiums
            In your free streets
            In your homes
                        Heated by their gas.
 
That need for gas
            That cut down
            Those that stand
            For what you claim to stand for...
            So many you have never heard of.
 
Stand now…
            For those
            That the TV shows you.
            Just sand…
                        In the place that you live…
                        That is warm and safe..
                        And feel better.
 
Some stand
            As they fuck…
And you sit:
            In front of your TV
            Or cuddled up
                        With your device.
And you watch
            As others get fucked
            By bullets
            And bombs…
                        More bloody
                        Than a thousand virgins.
            And you watch… not even standing.
'

Stand!
            And see if those
            That can no longer stand
            Really care.
 
Stand!
            If that is all it takes
            To make you feel better.