Monthly Archives: January 2005

After Our Summer is Gone

Just because we stop, the world
does not see fit to up and quit:
although we think our present season
the focus of the universe.

Just because our silicon
has returned back to native dust,
and what we’ve turned with artists’ hands
from ore to sculpture soon is rust.

The chlorophyll, almighty green
that courses wild through our bloodstream:
when it has drained away what soul
we once possessed, who will control

the world that constant, presses on
and throws its earth upon the graves
of king and peasant, saint and knave,
who build, discard, then too are gone?

31 JAN 2005

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The Seeker’s Lament

For forty years I’ve sought some kind of truth
and come up empty-handed, more or less.
What dreams I held like treasures in my youth
have lost their gleam; my hands, their tenderness.

The journey has not gone as I had planned,
nor have the self-prescribed instructions been much good.
The waters beyond my small plot of land
remain uncharted depths, and what sparse food

I gleaned from these great oceans has become
like horded manna, fit for only flies;
my touch has turned rare jewels to lumps of coal.
My tongue once loose with song has been struck dumb,
anesthetized by years of speaking lies.
Now, even my illusions cannot hold.

Along the rocky shore, I peer in vain
out in the mist that crowds the twilight shore
with eyes now worn and weak, their muscle strained
from nights in candlelight. There is no more

soft music in the wind that brings delight,
nor quiet silence where I find some peace.
Each moment brings no end, just fruitless fight;
and sleep, once fitful, brings me no release.

At midnight, when the world is calm and still
and secrets are exchanged between the veils,
I stand offstage, behind the curtain’s wall
and where the footlight shadows barely spill,
just listening to others’ wondrous tales,
and realize I’ve found nothing at all.

27 JAN 2005

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For Starlight Born with Robbie Burns

Although some celebrate today
the Scotsman’s favorite bard,
my day is elsewise occupied
and I shall find it hard

to think of he whose “Auld Lang Syne”
will ring out through the night.
For this day someone else was born
who gives my life delight.

My first, my last, my everything,
my better half, by far,
the truest friend I’ve ever had:
my one and only Star.

So Robbie Burns, I wish ye well
there under heath and sod;
You’ve given me much, I admit,
to think on man and God.

But today is for goddesses,
and I’ve one in the flesh;
were you alive, it’s likely you
would feel the same, I guess.

A toast to verse, and tuneful speech,
to poets at their rest,
and to the muses such as mine
who give all life their zest.

25 JAN 2005

For Sondra (Starlight Dances)

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The Starting Point

Like all Capricorns, I suppose, I am continually attempting to fashion some kind of theory of the universe. In conjunction with that astrological impetus, my real world experience in information systems technical support insists that this theory include a practical user’s guide written in language that can be easily understood (or at least understood if one possesses the proper prerequisite understanding). The musician that I am provides the cement that ties the ideas together, while the philosopher crafts the thoughts that the writer puts into words.

You’ll notice that I didn’t say my being “pagan” gives it any sort of spiritual veracity or inspiration. That’s because unlike all those other traits I identified above, it’s not an action. It is a state of being, not a religious inclination or activity. Besides, there are so many labels that could be, are, or have been applied to ideas that these labels make no more sense than an endless stream of acronyms paraded by a Silicon Valley wunderkind in front of a Neanderthal who just got his first wheel built. And I don’t consider this a “pagan” piece of thinking – or rather, I do, but I suppose not many other so-called “pagans” would agree. Maybe that’s because it’s not just the anti-pagans that have a far too limited interpretation of what that Latin derived word REALLY means. This work is not about that.

It is about expanding, not constricting.

It is a philosophy of energy.

This is an on-going work.

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An End to Parables

I’ve spent a life in parables,
disguising my ideas
in costumes and strange metaphors
deliberately unclear

and so perhaps convinced the world
that I’m a harmless quack,
imagining just chimeras
with no spine in their backs.

But recently, while looking through
and sorting sundry stuff,
I’ve started thinking parables
are just not clear enough.

So I’ve decided to speak plainly,
well, at least plain as I can,
and for a while, pretend that I’m
a new idea man.

Besides, it seems at present
the world needs of bit of this;
so I beg your indulgence,
and hope you won’t find amiss

the fact that I’ll be writing things
to stretch your world, and mine —
and perhaps we together
can build a new paradigm.

24 JAN 2005

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Communication for a New Age

This is primarily an intro to several chains-of-thought that make up the bigger picture. They probably will not be chained together in this way once each of them has been fleshed out a bit more.

Each historical age is determined by the predominant societal position given to the individuals, groups, nations or empires that can produce or have the resources to acquire whatever substance that age equates to its varied definitions of power. The Bronze Age – whoever could make the most bronze weapons and tools was the predominant culture; The Iron Age – same scenario, different metal. Once societies ran out of harder or more workable metals, they had to pause and re-evaluate their priorities. As a result, we had the Dark Ages – whoever could keep the most people in the dark about their own potential and thereby utilize the brawn of the world without the cumbersome benefit of its brain; the Industrial Age – the period during which those who appeared to be the most industrious were valued, when how much you had really first became more important that what it was you had so much of; the Computer Age – that period of time after we figured out we could get someone else to do the thinking for us, and ending just before the period of time when we began to realize we couldn’t tell the difference; and finally, we are in the midst of what some are calling the Information Age. Of course, because there are so many of us in this world now, and each of us more or less autonomously by consensus creates, borrows, buys, steals, inherits, creates, is allowed, is deluded into, or avoids their own separate, unique and individual opinion on the subject, whether we are at the beginning, in the middle, or nearing the definite conclusion of the information age is highly subjective.

My belief is that we are near the end of the Information Age; and that means that a new age is on the imminent horizon. I will outline my reasons for this belief, both in its ceasing to exist and clearly waiting to exist aspects, in a while. For now, let me just skip forward to my conclusion: The next age we are about to enter is the Wisdom Age, and unless we start thinking about gathering some of it together now, you and I and a lot of people on this planet are going to be on the bottom of the food chain, socially speaking.

The first question I would put forward to anyone I encountered in this new age would not be, “Do you speak MY language, stranger,” but rather, “Can you sing in your OWN (language)?”

At the conclusion of my initial interrogative statement I would commence to demonstrate a song of my own devising, in my own language. If there was no reply in kind, then that person would be required to locate someone of his own kind who could in fact sing a few bars. If that individual was willing to teach the first “stranger” something of the way of singing, then improvement of that culture could continue. Of course, there would be attempts, in the beginning of the age, where some would try to get others to sing on their behalf (which would of course give credibility to the singer and only by association improve the standing of the employer in some respects, and lower their believability in other respects), or would learn, by rote, someone else’s songs and try to bluff their way through (of course, a true singer would know that the song was not of the singer’s creation, and would know something was false in the communication). But this would rapidly prove the exception.

After the first exchange of songs in each of the singer’s native languages, translation of ideas and other information could ensue. Without a meeting of equals, an individual or group, no matter how extensive or impressive or overwhelming their other assets, had no basis for transacting communication and no wise way of achieving that objective. Unless two individuals can understand,
through that shared experience of each other’s inner being that singing your own song weaves into reality, what really is important to the other person, there is no fair, equitable, honest, open, profitable or moral grounds for business, trade, marriage, treaty, alliance, division, disagreement, censorship, condemnation, ridicule, friendship, religion or warfare – in short, none of these partnership activities can occur. If you want any of those things but can not get your songs in order, you just have to wait. You’re obviously not ready for whatever it is you think you want. So you have time to work on your song and get it together.

Maybe this will help put things into a bit of perspective:

Imagine walking down the sidewalk on an early spring morning, a light mist still hanging in the air in the coolness of the day. You could be in a metropolitan area, or out in the middle of the desert (of course, the construction and very nature of your sidewalk will vary depending on that first choice). There could be thousands of other people involved in this selfsame activity, or you could be the only one. For the sake of this illustration, imagine yourself and at least one other person who will become aware of your presence at about the same time you gain awareness of them.

Now imagine that instead of having a set of headphones on your head that is fed from Sony Walkman, you are accompanied in the open air by a group of between two and six musicians, all accompanying themselves using whatever acoustic (that is, non-electrically powered) instruments, devices, accessories, tools best describe and reproduce the music that describes you. This may take a while to imagine, and of course, at different times, the group may be composed of different and perhaps interchangeable individuals and/or attachments. Chances are you’ll have several varying groups, but at least one or two. Now imagine the body of work that they might perform. It might be songs from the radio, ambient sounds, religious hymns, classical works, etc., etc. At least one of the songs must be an original work (exactly how original is always going to be a problem, it always has been, but I think the nature of the problem will probably change in the future), the performance of which you take an active part whenever it comes into rotation, or by request, whichever comes first. Since this discourse will get confusing unless we somehow divide its parts into recognizable segments, let’s call this first imaginary product in the course of this analogy “The Soundtrack of Your Life.”

Don’t worry if you think you might have left something out – there’s going to be ample opportunity in the future to expand your repertoire.

15 MAR 2005

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More on Sanity and Madness

Who could imagine their ancestors
all stark raving mad,
or at least each generation
marking out as bad
an apple flung far from the tree,
opposed to status quo
and causing much embarrassment,
endless grief and woe?
Yet isn’t it a kind of madness
to mime, deaf and mute,
precisely as your forebears did,
and not press your own suit?
And times when the world was mad —
if your lot stayed the same,
would you not think it odd or find
some malady to blame?
To think that no one in my family
thought this world not right,
or questioned why it should be so,
gives me an awful fright.
For what is more insanity:
to flee a maddened world,
or find a place inside the whirlwind
and stay safely curled?
A paradox that troubles me
whenever I feel sane
is why I find a normalcy
amidst such strife and pain,
and why we fear insanity,
which makes us more aware
of that which keeps the world divided:
in here, and out there.

23 JAN 2005

One could argue, I suppose, that there is a hint of madness to be found in EVERY family tree. And for those that exhibit no overt sign of it, I suggest that itself is the madness.

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