Pumpkins

“Pumpkin Patch” by Jani Freimann

 

pumpkins on a vine

press the weight of

their plumping identity

into the life-giving soil

sharing green leaf and

stem born and grown

of a season marked out

by sun-shortened days

in whose hurry of time

they have come to exist

cheek-to-jowl learned

the intimate character

each of the other yet

know not the least of

themselves introspection

a faculty much too

complex for the homely

simplicity settled by

untended botany wild

existence that waits

to be plucked from an

unaware field given

solipsist gifts of real

personal purpose

experiences never

dreamed now laid out

for a sentient month

or more mingling

with alien species now

blessed with a freedom

to think and enjoy feeling

live interaction with

affable beings possessed

of a healthy self-worth

personality even short

lived fully realizes all

that biology down in its

chemistry promises life

 

 

From my book Ephemera

Frost Heaves

“Road to Giverny in Winter” by Claude Monet

 

ice forms in slim wombs

subterranean

temporal passages

crystal with seasons

swell yesterday’s thaw

pushing upthrusting

seriate ripples

embellishing pavements

men laid with a matrix

of dreamstuff

an undulant shapely

cascade leading

either away from

or back to a time and

a place that have

finished themselves

bygone eras completed

now covered by distance

with ribbons of roads

ever lengthening

reaching to span

two opposing horizons

conflicting emotions

of sunrise and sunset

the alpha omega points

true destinations

for traffic compelled

by alternative passions

indifferent to time

 

 

From my books Ephemera and Legacies (vol. 2)

The Crowd is Untruth

“Scattered Destiny” by Joseph Kobina Prah

 

anger panic and fear
speed from
stranger to stranger
like flames match-lit
race along fuses
of volatile neurons
to leap across gaps of
magnesium mindlessness
horrid with consequence
masses corrupted in
white hot sparked unison
here is impenitent man
irresponsibly fractioned
burned whole
soul reduced and adapted
to feral behaviors
black acts
of a wild
human herd

*******************************

“Truth always rests with the minority … because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion.”     – Søren Kierkegaard

 

 

From my book Pieces of Wine

Paint by Number

 

Portrait by Tim Mueller

 

 

pale blue lines
outline blotches
the shapes and
the shadows of
life by the numbers
faint color codes
cover the mass
produced canvas
designed to create
one more mass
produced portrait
with pigments that
daub and dress
mutual features
of character
common to crowds
save for moments
infrequently fresh
here and there
now and then
when a self-minded
painter flips over
the art board and
makes of its sheer
daunting blankness
a brave handed
bold colored vision
a one-of-a-kind
most remarkable life

 

 

From my book Ephemera

Palisades

“Chapel Pines Grove” by Joe Mamer

conifers skyward

dense towering stands

stalwart windbreaks

against hurly burly

the worldly vicissitudes

blowing their business

across flatscreen minds

giving siege to tranquility

smothering those

who would breathe

self-sufficiency

modern encroachments

whose hazards

Thoreau would have

well understood

despite the astonishing

speed of the spin

of the world

 

 

From my book Ephemera

Oral Judgment

like a toddler makes sense of the world
I put pieces of it in my mouth
random chunks of the cosmos
terrestrial tidbits a morsel of motion
taste texture and bite reveal truths
that refute the most trenchant
conventional wisdom
tongue tooth lip and cheek more reliably
sensible organs than eye ear and nose
less prone to be waylaid misled
by the spoor of unchallenged opinions
chew it up spit it out and move on
all the better equipped for the
self-made conclusions that mark
one’s authentic existence

Piss and Vinegar

 

“Outrage” by Charles Pollock

 

 

what madness it is

to tie up the tongue

to hold back the temper

to stopper your cruets

piss and vinegar need to

be poured and not stored

disinfectants for bullshit

set burn to the bombast

whet words to an edge

cut and slash like a pirate

possessed at pc absurdity

who but the blunt honest

common sense principled

critic can rescue society

free it from strangling

within its own clutches

let fly with just outrage

put the bastards on notice

enough is enough time

to take back control from

those solipsist satraps

paternalist pen-pushers

deaf dumb and blind

central planners of life

stealing freedoms

wherever they find them

so please let the cleansing

acerb piss and vinegar flow

 

 

From my book Onionskin

View From Under the Sea

 

“Tornado School of Fish” by Caine Delacy

 

 

ugly featureless bellies
aligned for their swim
through the food chain
the race to the swift
for the hesitant all will be lost
best to keep to the center
carried along by the throng
as every half brain is aware
there is safety in numbers
little need for decisions
or thoughts of one’s own

funny how it all
looks the same
up above

******************************

“The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.” – Jim Hightower

 

 

From my books Onionskin and Legacies (vol. 2)

 

Ultimate Inversion

“Reborn Identity”
Painting by Eric Holmlund
From ericholmlund.com

who will stand in my way
who will stop me
convert me
not a man or a woman alive
but a bleak institution
of culture or government
an overfed entity
grown ever fattened
still hungered by organic
unjust philosophies
errant and arrogant
cold ideologies
avidly swallowing whole
individual rights
born to citizens
each a discrete moral vessel
of personal motives and dreams
each a man or a woman
whose stuff has been
sucked out by mouths
of cruel sneering repression

******************************
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” – Ayn Rand, 1963

Distinctions

“Identity”
Painting by Sebastian Guerrini
From fineartamerica.com

who lives in the mirror
depends on the cant
and the color of light
in the curious eyes
some are personal
some highly social
perspective is one
or the other in one
given moment but
alternates back and
forth often through
one given lifetime
the self irrespective
or thoroughly formed
of opinions by others
the mind at work under
its own head of steam
or impelled by the
worked over thoughts
and conclusions that
others conceived

construing the self
is an utterly human
affair put the mirror
in front of a spider
a bird or a bear and
they recognize what
they perceive as a
member of family
but always a stranger

man has more complex
identity often conflicted
between independence
and interdependence
assertions of either
will fail to obtain we
are each some of both

drawing power from
being uniquely self-made
feeling comfort within
one’s own skin while
engaging community
giving and taking the
lessons and lore of a
confident man among men
the most valuable being
that orientation is often
a function of culture
who judges behavior
by lights of its dominant
individualist or collectivist
ethic the trick to real joy
is in choosing the perfect
timed moments to tell
to that culture just how
it can go straight to hell

but then this is the voice
of iconoclast owned by
a man who eschews all
conformity holding the
motto to live free or die