We Persist

Let's work our way

to the eye of the storm

that blew in like a whirlwind

of unmatched ferocity...

Surrounded on all sides

by swirling walls of external turmoil

we can rest and get our bearings

if we stop fighting friction conflicts

Bend with the breeze

that seeks to rip us apart

and it will if we let it

cause we're ill equipped

to battle these forces head on...

Fortunately such adversaries

of high intensity

do tend to dissipate rapidly...

Unlike us who roll slow and steady...

Survivors of many a hard grind...

We'll still be around

long after this challenge

has blown through...

It's what we survivors do...

Rotten Apples

As a rule I try as best I can to stay clear of perpetually cynical people... 

Their negative slants on life not only are exhausting, but the black cloud they live under will eventually envelope you if you are not careful..

And yet I have become all that I despise... After quite a few decades wandering through life on this planet I am now a hard core cynic so I guess I truly despise myself (it happens)...

Of course we Negative Nellies like to classify ourselves as realists and given the facts of life today outsiders of our dark universe who would try and knock us off our cracked soap boxes would face an almost impossible task..

Let's face it, we live in an "ends justifies the means" world...

Consequence has become an antiquated concept... 

A fifteen year old Russian figure skater tests positive for a performance enhancing drug and of course the rule against this behavior is over ruled and the young girl is allowed to skate in the Olympics... The pressure got to her and she went down in flames, though the conspiracy tin foiled hat guy in me wonders if she was ordered to take a few falls for the team to lessen the heat.. Her Russian team mates finished 1-2 in the event, but who is to say they were not also chemically enhanced(not that it matters) but did not get caught.. It's all a big flashy spangled shit show..

The beloved teddy bear David "Big Papi" Ortiz who previously had failed a steroid test got voted into the baseball Hall of Fame this year.. Prior to this, known or suspected juicers did not receive the needed votes, but that thud you hear are standards being dropped.. Now the cry is louder than ever that past chemical sinners like Bonds, Clemens, and Arod should be in the Hall because "everybody was doing it"... Full disclosure: I believe these guys should all be in the Hall of Fame but as I said before I don't particularly like myself.. 

"Everybody does it" has always been the go to rationalization for those who have been caught in the act of wrong doing.. Kids use it all the time when they get in trouble, but how do parents today teach children that the old "two wrongs don't make a right" counter answer is still in effect? 

The Houston Astros get caught cheating and are allowed to keep their championship, the Patriots in football have been nabbed numerous times for bending the rules... Heck, even Medina's Spirit, the horse who won the Kentucky Derby tested positive for illegal drugs and was allowed to keep racing.. The transgressors just take the short term social media hits, pay whatever fine is levied, and go on their merry way..

Things are no different in business and politics... The corporate financial shysters who nearly took down the global economy in 2008 with their shady accounting tricks all got away with their crimes with nary a one of them doing a moment in jail for their fraudulent actions.. Zero accountability on their personal balance sheets..

Politics is replete with examples of people from both parties breaking rules and laws all the time with few if any ever having to pay the price...Most even get reelected and those who don't leave politics and slide right into the corporate or lobbyist world at mega salaries...Who says crime does not pay?

Along with consequence being an endangered species the same can be said for the concept of shame.. These days instead of the sinner contritely confessing and doing penance for their sins, the modern tactic is to play the victim card and aggressively attack the motives of those who bring the charges.. No deflection is too outrageous or out of bounds... Our previous president is the master of this strategy and his supporters love and celebrate him as the forever aggrieved whipping boy of the insidious Deep State..

Not only do "Nice guys finish last" in America, but they are ridiculed and their motives are constantly mocked and questioned by a jaded populace... One would think that perhaps these righteous unicorns should perhaps enter the priesthood or the ministry, but the pedophile protecting Church may not be the best place for pious morality types...

I offer no solutions of how to stem this tsunami of cynicism nor do I pretend to understand why our frightened species seems to be sinking deeper into this pit of human pessimism...

Maybe we should blame it all on God and call the rest of humanity's trip off...     

  

    

     

    

 

 

    

Mystery Tripping

Scrolling through coming attractions

to see where I need to be

Down this narrow corridor of tomorrow

the future is a maze of uncertainty

We roll moment by moment

Weave past history

into coherent memory

The good and the bad

form our life tapestry

What's up next

for wandering us

is anyone's guess

Best try and be ready

Shot Gun Love

On this relationship thoroughfare
replete with many a bump and turn
you were the one chosen by destiny
to ride shotgun with me

It was always you

It always will be

Our love soars above
the constraints of poetry

For happily ever after
ain't just a fairy tale cliche

It's our daily reality

Raging Cow

Sparks fly off her flat screen
with a friction unmatched in nature...

Reigning down calamity
on today's object of her ire...

A combustible text fire
that burns the eyes
and sears the very soul
of the toasted marshmallow
who lit the flame...

Now currently buried
beneath the ashes of blame

Shoot All Messengers

If you study the long history
of our contentious species
you will quickly see
a common thread of inhumanity...

Our chest thumping tribe
riddled with insecurities
is hard wired to solve conflicts
with unrelenting violence
so don't hold your breath
about us ever giving peace a chance

Thanksgiving Requiem

 

Gnawing on a turkey leg
like a marauding Viking
in the company of my blood
most of whom I never see
unless when we gotta reconvene
to bury one of them...

Those of us who skew elderly
wonder if this indeed
will be our final feast
and we'll be relieved finally
of the chore having to endure
this great American tradition...

Pass the mortality please...

Purple Welts

 (Warning: The following is a rambling rant...Viewer tolerance requested)

Full Disclosure: I am one of those disillusioned Democrats who voted for Trump in 2016..

Actually like so many others my vote was AGAINST Hillary who to me epitomized the corrupt corporate inside the Beltway politicians who had strayed from the working class roots of FDR's Democratic Party...

Sure Trump was a wealthy morally bankrupt con man, but he effectively ran as a non politician outsider and since he was outside the political establishment I hoped he could bring a fresh perspective and maybe begin the process of bridging the divide between the perpetually warring political parties in DC...

Drain the swamp as it were...

This did not happen and instead of bridging the divide, the political wars intensified even more and the Grand Canyon like chasm widened during Trump's four years... 

Like with most wars, it takes two to tango... Trump's philosophy of "us versus them" while demonizing his opponents did not lend itself to bipartisan unity while the Dems who were shocked and pissed off that they could lose an election to such a vile creature reverted to full obstruct combat mode with the express goal of retaking their Congressional majorities in 2018 and the White House in 2020..

Full Disclosure II ... I spend way too much of my dwindling life span on Twitter...

For me Twitter was love at first site(ha ha)... I love the speed and the character limits that forced rambling me to convey my thoughts with beautiful brevity... The site rekindled my long ago extinguished passion of writing poetry which required me to utilize my atrophied brain... It also served as great therapy for an infinite variety of suppressed issues... Best of all, unlike Facebook I and the people I conversed with were anonymous blips on the screen... Nothing is more liberating and conducive to a free exchange of feelings than anonymity...  

Of course the political wars and all the combat politics seeped into and polluted many a conversation.. I have always viewed politics like I do sports in that it's all fun and games not to be taken too seriously...

As the social media political wars have escalated, so has the vitriol and personal attacks on those on the "other side"... At least on Twitter the personal bloodletting is usually between strangers, but in the real world political realm the personal shots between Democrats and Republicans are between representatives who should be working for the common good of the country...

Today the potentially lethal virus infecting the body politic today is this manically irrational obsession with placing politics over country... I believe this malady began to rear it's ugly head during the Clinton administration and has gotten progressively worse with each subsequent administration... The explosion of social media and 24/7 news (and I use that term "social" loosely) outlets has been fuel that feeds the fire daily..

What set off this rant was a post today by a Trump supporter gleefully showing off a chart which indicated that 14 of the top 15 states with the most daily new corona cases were "blue states"...One could almost hear the taunting tone of this gotcha troll sticking it to the libs in true Trumpian fashion

Of course this salvo set off numerous counter taunting posts from enraged Dems posting gleeful charts that the top 10 states with covid hospitalization and deaths were "red states"... Gotcha back fascists...

Fuck those losers who died... We are here to score political points and skewer our enemy.. 

These pointless rumbles rage daily on social media and all across Amercia... Us versus them.. Attack and counterattack... Stick it to the enemy and take no prisoners.. 

Senator Manchin a Democrat from very conservative West Virginia had justifiable(in my opinion) concerns about the high cost of the Build Back Better bundle of proposals and indicated he could not support Biden's bill... This of course unleashed a tsunami of predictable personal attacks and condemnations of the Senator from out of their minds with rage Dems.. How dare he place his personal reservations over loyalty to his tribe...

No one asks or finds it disturbing in any way that every single one of the 50 Republicans were against the bill and 49 of the 50 Democrats were all for it... Only one person from these very diverse groups even considered straying from the rubber stamped party line...

This is the tragic normal these days... Healthy debate is not tolerated... Compromise is a profanity... The party out of power does everything they can to undermine and obstruct the party in power from even a sliver of success which could benefit the country and therefore make it more difficult to unseat them...And the party in power retaliates by shutting out the other side from the decision making process...Round and round the partisan bullshit wheel spins... Us versus them... Nobody wins...

Party before country as our ship slowly sinks and we all drown together...

Thanks for playing...

 

      

 

     

  

  

   

  

                  

     

 

 

Alphabet Party

At a literary party I crashed purely because I was bored the letter U came up to me and moaned about the bullshit spelling rule of his presence always having to follow the letter Q...

"Why not a letter of more worth and status?",  he mused...

The least loved vowel made a very valid point though I chose not to enable his rants for fear of being accused of enabling the breakup of a very popular group...

I bumped into Q later in the evening and found her to be quite the pretentious little cunt though in all fairness she was quite drunk on champagne cocktails so we may not have met at her best moment...

In retrospect, it's hard for we mere mortals to realize and appreciate the stress levels these communication keystrokes have to endure on a daily basis...

 

  

Med Time Rhyme

GOttA reGuLAte 
cHeMiCal
im
bal ance
thAt DefiEs
cUrrenT beHavioRaL anaLySis..

That's better...

Now my words are more presentable...

 
In olden times
we would have been
institutionalized
and locked away...

Never to be seen or heard
again by proper society...

Not even family
wanted to associate
with us misfit members...

We were deletes of history...

Today they just give us
mind numbing meds

to keep us flat line controllable

and more easily socially digestible...

Not even a minimal hint

of humanity is left intact

after our souls

are neutered chemically... 

Life is all about control...

Refracted Life

All my hand wringing

is completely chafing

these distorted dreams

once my private domain

now rapidly slipping away...

I may lay the blame

at a variety of clay feet

kicking me in my delusions

but the cracked mirror before me

is a relentless adversary

which hands out refracted reflections

of my decaying world

rapidly losing it's substance

and any hope of personal redemption

 

Soul Dilutions

Went back...

Deep into archives past

to review

the deleted versions of me

in all their unedited glory

Back before I became refined

and meticulously planned

like fine wine

polished eunuch I now am

An artificial caricature

compromised 

beyond all personal recognition

Care Package

I am
such
a flippant
rascal...

This really

which annoys
peeps
who feel
I need to be
more
respectfully
conventionally
packaged...

Too bad for them,
but fortunately for me
I don't give a damn
about what ''they" think

Nubbed Out

Sturdy and strong
when freed from the box
the noble pencil of yore
was immediately on point...

Such the productive tool...

Useful to it's very core...

Time advances...

Now the once proud cog

is tired and worn...

Not much of use anymore...

Past the point of functionality...

 
Wither the nub of the bunch...

Soon to be gone...

Smell Testing

Bit into a rancid concept...

Delicious to the eye
but thoroughly rotten inside...

As I spit the vile sandwich out
I vow henceforth
to ride shotgun with doubt
and always check
the expiration date
before blindly
consuming externally
every convenient theory
that just so happens to fit
my current slanted narrative...

The Path Traversed

The things you find

during the decluttering process...

Frozen in time...

This scrapbook now soothes

my fading mind..

Pics fully laminated...

Protection against the elements

and the ravages of today...

Locked in memories

where none of us age out...

Even death can not penetrate

this thick veneer of yesterday

where erosion is irrelevant

to these locked in moments of joy...

Arthritic fingers

painfully skimming

long neglected pages...

Liberating images

from a bygone existence

of youthful exuberance

and unbridled innocence 

where we still owned

all our tomorrows...

Curiosity Suicide

Dug deep
and went in depth
to bypass surface truths
that muddy perceptions...

Got to the core finally
only to find
upon closer inspection
these well meant deceptions
were for my own protection...

Wish I could go back
to my blissful ignorance

Ride The Rise

Chronically cynical me
wants to believe desperately
in anything...

or anyone...

Cause it's not easy
lugging these chains of negativity
all around this grind of a life
that will bury you
if you can't manage

to rise above the bullshit
every once and awhile

Processed Life

Round and round...

Dizzy from the spin...

Chasing a tail

we will never catch...

Satisfaction rarely guaranteed...

Yet the fruitless pursuit proceeds...

Instead of keeping score

as we try to quantify
and desperately justify
our timeline quite finite
perhaps we'd be best served
if we graded ourselves on a curve...

Embrace life's variations...

Cut our stressed asses some slack...

Finally accept the obvious fact
that winning this game
is all in the playing

Pro

Blessed Be We Inepts

People anxiety
getting the best of me
as I put on ignore
the suffocating real life party
and the fake conversations all around...

The hum of a small talk symphony

like finger nails scraping a chalkboard

have always been pure torture

to my socially awkward species... 

 
Escaping to the shadows...

Seeking relief in isolation...

I take refuge in technology
with my head buried
in a hand held oasis...
 
Suckling on the bosom
of my flat screen
cyber sanctuary... 

Once again 

using this social media front

to be fully anti social...

Island of Misfit Selfies

99 abandoned selfies
that did not make
the posting cut...

Orphan victims
of flaws self perceived...

I'd rather see
these image outtakes...

Much prefer to view
the real you...

Flaws and all...

Instead of that one perfectly staged pic
plastered on your social media wall

Islan

Indecent Exposure

This entrenched position
I got myself locked into
without thinking things through
(which I too often tend to do)
is beginning to disintegrate...

My hard line intransigence
now blowing back in my face
as the relentless forces of truth
lay waste to played out arguments...

How to exit this pit gracefully

with even a shred of dignity

is going to be a challenge for humbled me

in this social media communications age

where every rant pronouncement

is recorded permanently...

Guess it's best to take the hit

and admit that I am full of shit

  

 

Bratty Zealots

 

Show me the creature
of absolute certainty
with rock hard steadfastness
buoyed by unwavering conviction
and swaggering confidence
mixed with a sense of arrogance
that doubt can never penetrate
and you will have found in your midst
a stubborn close minded zealot...

Show me the creature

from the Know It All tribe

who belittles and condescends

those who dare share contrary opinions

that challenge their core structure

and shake the very foundation

that supports past entitlement

and you will have found in your midst

your typical rigid ideologue...

Do not engage these foolish creatures in debate...

Best to let them pound their chests and bloviate...

Sure they can be incredibly annoying little girls and boys

but in the end they are just irritating background noise

who will fade into obscurity and bitter irrelevance

once the adults send them off to bed

  

 

Ode to the Outcasts

The mass text spoon fed
to satiate conventional wisdom
will never reach full saturation
so long as there exists free thinkers
who chafe against conventional interpretation...

They will of course be ostracized
and pushed off to the side 
for their lack of thought conformity...

As painful as their isolation may be

they can take solace in this certainty...

All progress throughout human history

was driven and advanced by such outcasts

who dared to venture outside the main stream 

Inter Gender Demolitions

Aging former beauty queen...

Perpetually battling gravity
and the catty whispers
of alleged friends...

Perhaps out of jealousy
or the residue of past envy...

Many of whom themselves have stealthily
had bodily parts enhanced surgically...

Perhaps they should focus their efforts
on uplifting each others spirits...

This quality of humility
and communal empathy
is a timeless reflection
of true and lasting beauty

And Read All Over

Zebra Zebra...

We dig your stripes
of black and white...

A metaphor perpetually
of racial harmony
and spiritual coexistence
which long ago
drifted into the domain
of lazy cliche...

Zebra Zebra...

Stay clear of predators
and desperate poet philosophers

In the End

My innuendos once so crisp

gradually began to slip...

Becoming so worn

and outside newly minted social norms

I became a social outcast...

Now wearing the label

sexist misogynist 

of a Boomer origin

the muzzle fitted snug

over these inappropriate lips..

Stripped of all sarcasm

by the very same forces

I use to mock and disparage

back when I was still relevant..

My dreams of a blue comedy Renaissance

now destined to perish with me

Detour Road

Those calamities
we bring
on ourselves
are the hardest knots to untie...

We have to unravel
not only threaded consequence
but also the stubborn core
of tightly wound ego
we arrogantly applied
when we let our emotions decide
the course of future events...

Now we need find
the required humility
to break down our deficiencies  
and extricate ourselves
from the morass we made...

   
Only then
once we have untangled
and the fix implemented
can we proceed 
to get back 
on the road to evolution

Seek and Find

 

I finally found happiness
when I stopped running away
and faced the liberating truth
that there is no escaping mortality...

Had to drop the pointless denials
and desperate deflections...

This self confession
led to my acceptance
that our existence is but a maze
with only one funnel exit
that will find us all 
upon completion of the game

Once Upon A Good Time

Pretty pink princess
with her poofy puffy dress
blowing in the glittery breeze...

Side saddle riding
her snow whiter unicorn
through strawberry fields
somewhere over the rainbow...

Rides past judgmental eyes

with nary a care in the world...

Deep inside her fairy tale bubble

that will one day go pop
and land her crashed ass in rehab