the current chaos

the world could fall apart, but if it does not fall apart at my doorstep...if it does not come to meet me at my doorstep...is it truly falling apart?

like youth strung out on their own lack of experience, i can feign ignorance of the thousands of invaders, the thousands of homeless, and the thousands of despondent, if it fails to touch my world. i can wallow behind a wall of indifference, if i want to hide my heart from the pain of humanity. but should i blend in with the clueless, give way to the heartless void present in a society destined for failure?

and if i do, what good am I? 

if i am wonderfully and fearfully made, by the mind and hand of a creator, what i do is important to that creator. it must be because that creator must have designed a purpose for me as that creator has purposed what appears to be a complicated world, of which I am a small but important part. not insignificant, in that i am not swatted away like a gnat or washed down the drain like an ant. not ultimate, in that i am part of a fellowship of humanity. it is humbling to know that the creator purposed my existence. 

the current chaos...the churning upheaval of western civilization, caught in a downward spiral by forces that seem to be allied together to destroy rather than create...is inescapable in the western world. Wall yourself off from the world and it will seep in through the cracks to remind you that there are forces that hate you, apparently for the mere reason of your reflective image from the creator. you have the capacity to create, like the creator. you have, deep within you, a capacity for compassion, for self-less love, unless you too have given yourself over to the chaos, to the religion of destruction. 

And that is truly what it is, a religion. A set of beliefs. It seeks self-destruction in the name of the antithesis of creation. The evil once incarnated is simply the absence of the creative. if the creator, or God, pre-existed, evil could not have existed before a choice was made to abandon creation. So, this chaos, this evil, has set about to accelerate decay, not create, destruction, not resurrection. 

A love letter to the IRS

 Dear Ms. IRS Employee,

Grazing through the news fodder of another day, I noticed a letter from your supervisor’s office, claiming that your agency may be reading my emails, checking my personal records, and even following my habits. It is with this in mind that I have written to you, in hopes that you will read this and we can be better friends…or maybe something more.

You see, for years I have suspected that you have had some romantic interest in me. Your office has- on occasion- sent copious amounts of correspondence to remind me of our “on again-off again” relationship in the past. And, while I admit, I was flattered, I never really believed that such an important person could find me so attractive. After all, I usually only file a standard 1040 form.

But then you started paying closer attention to me. You reminded my accountant that the two of us spoke on the phone and that you were desiring a more intimate commitment from me. You said you didn’t want to talk with him anymore. Well, I can read between the lines. You wouldn’t take no for an answer. You wrote to tell me how happy you were, counting the days until I sent you a little gift or a warm little letter. I admit, I blushed, thinking about your warm body up there in that office, lonely for another phone call, or another memo to cross your desk. After all, I know just how lonely it can be stuck in a high rise building, surrounded by paper pushers.

So, I called you again. You asked me about my dog- the invisible one- the people in my family, and my spending habits as a single adult male. I thought you were a bit forward, but now I understand. You wanted some information, something solid to build our relationship.

And that is when I suspected it. You didn’t call, you played hard to get. You didn’t send me a 1040 book. You didn’t send me a Christmas card. You didn’t even give my name to those representatives that used to send me Christmas cards. In short, you made it clear that you were looking at someone else.

But then I heard the news. A more intimate letter. Finally, the truth- you haven’t been ignoring me, just following me from afar. It made me so happy to know, you haven’t forgotten me after all. Yes, I do want to take your letters more seriously. I believe I am now ready for real commitment. 

So, I thought I’d ask if you wanted to stop by sometime, so we could go visit that Philippine restaurant my accountant told you about. It would be great to share the tax write off together! We could talk about your philosophy on the meal deduction- that'd be great! I am gushing at the seams, just waiting. You know my number- just text me.

Yours, sincerely,

your secret admirer.

Stay Away From The Monkey!

 Being Irish-American in rural America is like being a tadpole in a rainbow aquarium; I fit in somewhere, but I’m not the predominate species. I feel more at home in an ethnic restaurant, where no one really understands half of the words on the menu, because I feel an ethnic kinship to those who may be a little out of place. Some might even call me “special,” although I have always been able to communicate my intentions. The same cannot be said for those who designed the ever-popular and increasingly ubiquitous Chinese zodiac calendar that serves as a placemat for the most evangelistic people group in the world- those who start and run Chinese restaurants…

Several years ago...when a new Chinese restaurant came to the small town where my father and mother lived, I convinced them that we should experiment with new smells. You must understand that this was no easy feat, since my mother's dinner recipes for Chinese usually included a mountain of rice, and a can of this and a can of that. My father, when he frequented the Golden Bull restaurant when I was a child, used to order wonton soup and Moo Goo Gai Pan. In other words, the two of them were set in their ways, and did not venture too far into the world of Chinese cuisine.

Once inside, we were immediately besieged by rapid fire Mandarin. The smell of a sour black sauce and aromas escaping a fire-licked wok. Anemic girls with make-up making them look almost western...staring from a huge calendar on the customer side of a six-foot-tall fridge.

We managed to interpret the disjointed grunts of the aged Chinese lady directing traffic to the dozen tables, finding a comfy spot in what must have been seats out of an old Woolworth's. Their timelessness seemed to comfort my parents but left me with one cheek higher than the other.

So, as we sat waiting for our colorfully described dishes, we pondered the meanings of the assorted Chinese zodiac animals and their accompanying years on the paper placemats in front of us. While I had heard of the Year of The Tiger, and so forth, the mathematical and philosophical applications were a little like Ancient Babylonian, full of mystery. 

I discovered that my father was a horse, which meant he spends long hours pulling things around. That didn't seem quite right, as my father had always assigned us kids chores so that he could tackle more pressing issues like basic electricity. The latter involved interjections, mild cussing, and later an assault on the wallpaper. 

While I was recalling one particular disaster, my father was avidly reading about the "rat," an animal that he "must avoid him at all costs." 

Below my mother’s advice, a strange and distorted series of statements confounded us. After a rude description of my mother’s impeccable character, the zodiac had the nerve to claim that my mother is incompatible with horses…and thus my father. This came, surely, from a man who never spoke to a horse, nor my father. Furthermore, this compendium of wisdom instructed my mother to “stay away from the monkey.” Obviously, the writer had never met my mother. When at the zoo, she took special care to avoid the monkeys, baboons, and chimpanzees. My mother's interest in animals was purely gastronomical alone.

For me, this is not so. I am an animal lover. I have a stomach made of a foreign alloy, since I have ingested iguana in Central America, unpronounceable peppers in the jungle, something called a Beaver Tale in Ottawa, and middle eastern food resembling what the dog ate last night. I have unwittingly ate cat on a skewer rolled in Bisquick, and once had a lion steak…and yes, it never moved. However, there is one thing you will never see me eat…I will always stay away from the monkey…

an ode to a kidney stone

 you are edgy

and O so pale

like a communion wafer

gone cold and stale…

I have nightmares about a Grecian Urn…somewhere in the deep recesses of dreamland, tucked away for a fit-filled night, lies a canister of dark cinematic Hell from the epitome of bad poetry. Not even  “Ode To A Ball of String Cheese” can top the throes of despair one encounters from this rancid tale of imaginary dancing nymphs. To put it bluntly, I would rather snort sweet tart dust than endure such drivel. “Ode to A Grecian Urn” ranks right up there with “Afternoon Delight” and Leonard Nimoy’s voice on “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins,” crushingly painful. And like the stabbing pains of a kidney stone, such bad poetry deserves to be flushed to points unknown…

…but ere I feel your stabbing pain

I’ll be off to use the toilet again

and so I feel that this shall pass

like flatulence amidst a class…

they’ll hear me scream

they’ll hear me roar

but not before I hit the floor

and though it sting and though it burn

at least it’s not “A Grecian Urn.”

Ode to an expiring vacuum

she makes me wait before I can vac-

she seems to take too much time.

i’ll just go check the cheese and mac

while i think of another rhyme.

she coughs and gurguls and chortles

she cannot take much more

she is a fine piece of machinery

slowly dying on the kitchen floor.

i should have seen it coming

I should have seen the clues

my stream-lined silver vacuum

is singing like the blues.

i fear she will soon slumber

so i must go and get one new

a vacuum mate much cheaper

with more style and suction too…

oh poor old Kirby vacuum piece

your days are numbered now

like an old piece of rotting snow

before an oncoming plow…

Dichotomy in F Sharp

 Dichotomy In F Sharp

                           i

she stands alone staring out her window pane

while the trucks go west and the cars go east,

a blurry dance after the needle’s left.

she scratches the places she lies about

-like just another flea bite on her arm-

tonight it will take me, tonight it will be 

she prays in her mind, she prays in her mind.

 

he will wait for me after the sentence is passed

she practices saying before the dull silver mirror

swaying, swimming, and grabbing table and chair

black ovals running reckless with careless remorse-

her colors colliding with the sharp stinging stick,

she lays on the carpet, letting loose of all care.

                                      

                                   ii

he lays in the covers enclosed like a womb

passion with position, placement and pillow

steeping in memory after bedtime routine.

he flips in the dark with a careless delight

the dreams of the ocean wide with sea foam

as sailing alone to where waters collide

the figures all passing, the figures all gone.

 

he practices the faces, the lines, and the songs

the nights and the days, the storms and the calm

the mountains, the valleys, the sheep by the sea

the motions, the dances, the dialogue, the tea.

he stretches to take them, and cuddle them near

but wakes with a start to find they’re not there.

but silence is fleeting, and the Faithful One is kind

so he closes his eyes again…with God on his mind.

 

 

Mountain Quintet

 MOUNTAIN QUINTET # 1

the red roads round the map of state

and cross the deep divides of form…

splattered with pockets of pea-green paint

lands over which boots and backpacks reign

land of the rhododendron domain.

Let's make blogging better again

 Are you as bored with the normal blogging world as I am? Do you remember when it was actually fun to read blog posts? 

I have decided to help change the blog world....one post at a time. One way to do that is to challenge the blogging world to break through the boring into the interesting.

So, without further ado, I have some ideas that might make blogging better again. In random order, I have generated a list from the edge of my mind that may actually interest the bored. 

Here are 11 fascinating ideas that would make the blog world a better place to live, 11 possible blogs:

1.   Write daily entries about your dog's day. Write the day according to your dog's point of view...like "Today, I watched my human make boloney sandwiches..."

2.   The 30-Day Dragonfruit Diet Journal. Eat dragonfruit for a whole month daily. The theme is 'A day without Pitaya is like a Day without Sunshine."

3.    For those with a "fond memory..." it might be The Gallstone Celebration Journal: 14 Days of Hellacious Pain

4.     The Seven Continent Challenge Blog: Chronicle your attempt to date a woman/man from every continent. Those who have been to Antarctica count for citizens of that continent.

5.     Rewrite famous poems in the language of a pre-teen.

6.     Just as I once dreamed...write 101 recipes featuring Ramen noodles.

7.    Write a journal about your journey as a Fruititarian. 

8.     The Big Blog of Bloat. Write about what bloats you, what doesn't bloat you, and what could bloat you and your adventure with belt sizes.

9.   The Bladder Infection Blog, (commencing with onset, through the duration of medicinal treatment) complete with Physician’s desk reference notes, wonderful flip chart graphics and side notes, including supporting material from the International Gastrointestinal Disease Conference for 2023.

10.  The 30 Days Running in a Kilt Challenge (of course, complete with pictures of a kilted lad running to get on the bus, running in the supermarket, running from hairy cows, running past the boss at the office…). After each run, do a weigh-in. After 30 days write your groundbreaking discoveries about the journey.

11.  The Wonderful World of Menopause, a daily chronicle capturing all the highs, lows, highs, and lows...and highs and lows

People Who Haven't A Clue They Changed My Life

 The LIFE book 100 People Who Changed The World is not on my coffee table. It is not in my bookcase. It is not anywhere in my house...

...nor are there many traces of influence from 99 of these "100 most influential people" in my life. The only one who qualifies as having changed my world is the living word of God, the one LIFE identifies as "Jesus." 

The others are a cast of characters who have maybe influenced someone's culture, but they certainly have not touched mine.

But what I really want to explore instead is the 100 people who have randomly had an impact on my life and who haven't a clue that they did.

Like the keeper of the unabridged dictionary in the school library when I was growing up. I looked up to that nerd, not just because he was keeper of the book, but because he could actually carry it down the stairs.

And that pretty freshman cheerleader who sat behind me in study hall...who, unlike many of the others, had a personality more interesting than a candy wrapper, and did not want to make a move on every high school quarterback.

Or, that mind-numbingly wealthy Slavic girl in college who didn't seem to have a clue about the poor and oppressed, who inspired me to write poetry exposing the lack of compassion for the downtrodden by the social elite.

Or, that freshman who came into the donut shop after the bars closed and propped her feet up on a table in the corner, too drunk to walk alone to her dorm room, inspiring me to walk her home, as if she was my own daughter...instead of seeing her as a possible date.

Or, that anemic-looking character who stood on the corner trying to scam money out of passing former WalMart customers so she could buy her next heroin fix. Addicted. Dying. Living in a roach-infested apartment across from the Salvation Army. But God had told me to stop and take her into the store and buy her food...and socks... because He had compassion...and that, and her utter poverty of spirit, changed me.

Or, that guy who came running out the middle of a wilderness area ...running across the road to my car, where I had been enjoying the view. I drove him 45 minutes down the mountain to a pay phone so he could call for a chopper to fly one of the boy scouts to a hospital. So now, while I am as cautious as the other guy, I do believe there are divine appointments...

and there are so many more...and you could add you own here, but suffice to say, there have been so many people who have changed my life, just by their presence, just by being in the right place at the right time...or the wrong place at the right time...

....but they have no clue how they have changed my life.

who are the random people who have changed your life?

no more poop in the coop

 chickens running free through sweet meadows and forests, clucking their way into the sunset, free to run across the range…smiling, happy chickens…spreading their wings under the vast blue skies, with no….

caca grande en la casa

this bucolic vision of bird heaven reminds us all that it is a much better world we live in when we too are freed from the coop full of poop- in the Big Coop with the Big Rooster.

The Big Rooster rules the roost in the Big Coop because that is the way things go. The way things have always gone. That is what they say. That ubiquitous they. And they are always right, even when they are wrong.

The Big Coop is a clucking palace, where the chickens cluck away, strutting about as if taking selfies, running into their neighbors, eating everything in sight, and decorating the floor with verbal and visible manure. They may be clucking about The Big Rooster,  but their clucking is so loud that even the Big rooster rarely hears them. This keeper of the coop ensures that weak ones die, that clucking continues, and that the order of all things remains in his power. The growing mounds of shite collect, members oblivious to their smell, and sometimes oblivious to their presence,  with no…

prospect of freedom from the decay surrounding them.

But I am not speaking of chickens, I am speaking of weak souls…weak, pellet-fed souls repressed by a religious regime where an autocrat rules inside a boxed-in world…

that Jesus never came to proclaim…instead, He proclaimed…

 “A time is coming, and is come, when the true worshippers will  worship the Father in spirit and truth; for indeed the Father seeks such worshippers. God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and truth.”

“Do you not know that you are a temple of the Holy Spirit?”

Jesus did not come to establish the coop mentality. He came to destroy the man-made temple. The age Jesus came in was filled with temples worshipping gods. He came to see that all would be filled with the Holy Spirit, becoming temples of the living God.

If you are a temple, you have no need to be confined inside someone else’s temple culture, with its pagan rituals that stink to high heaven. Jesus came to give you freedom to live outside the religious building structure and its self-made gods of Big Egos. He came to create an environment where you, like free range chickens, can network and live free in healthy community, with…

no more poop in the coop.

the other language

how can I share what air cannot reveal,

what eyes cannot reach,

what words cannot contain?

though the wind whisper it,

my ears cannot translate for you,

only these lips that speak without thought

thoughts as a vapor rising.

The Society For The Prevention of Abuse To Unabridged Dicitonaires

 

When I was in school, the unabridged dictionary sat like an alien death weapon on a podium too small for the monstrosity. Most of the boys and girls in my class were afraid to even touch it. The librarian treated it like some kind of ancient relic from Vulcan.

Then, one day, it disappeared. It was piled in a gargantuan book-pyramid with numerous other dishonored lonely books. The speckled-faced librarian gathered them in a wheelbarrow and positioned them behind a hideously wide red truck.

In the morning, as I walked to school, I saw the red truck parked haphazardly upon the mound beyond the northern end of the school building. I walked over, peered into the bed. Below the truck bed, a few pieces of browned paper lay scattered about. I reached down and found they were crumpled into dust when touched.

The unabridged dictionary- along with other notable books- met their death that day…before I found the remnants of ash-like fragments.

I confess today that I do not own an unabridged dictionary. Someday, I will buy one….in secret. But for now, it has become a problem.

It is because I get words stuck in my head and often have to search to find their meaning.  So many times I cannot find it in any of the mamby-pamby dictionaries online or in any public library.

In fact, while I was dour, writing a very serious post, I got a word stuck in my head. Not like a song stuck in my head, but an “unknown” (for best effects, please pronounce with a Scottish accent) word. I flung open my dictionaries, scavenged the online dictionary venues, to no avail. I nearly flailed myself upon a piece of plastic to buy a subscription to the unabridged dictionary online…OK, I am exaggerating…but repented when I did some cost analysis.

You can read an account of my Shakespearean disgust at not finding that word in one of my former posts. 

But for now, I am calling on all students of life... those graduates from the University of hard knocks, soft knocks, and knock knocks, to rally the troops and demand your local library association bring back the massive volume of The Fun Stuff. 

My Lugubrious Peasant Life

 yonder pile of fetid mud,

so tender to the touch

contains the thatch remains

I must tend to very much.

I have no time for politics

no lengthy words or speech

my life is tied up with the mud

not in the words I’d preach.

Though I stand against the wicked sky

and stand against the rain

the filth remains my trusted friend

the place I will remain.

For I am just a man with plow

with furrowed face and ground

keeping busy on the landlord's land

‘ere he come and mow me down.

what we don't speak of

 what we don’t speak of

found inside our hearts

down in certain corners

it hides whenever we start-

thinking of the day,

thinking of the night,

soon we feel it passing

just another pang tonight…

if we had more choices

if  we had a second time

if we had more knowledge

would we face the door aright?

opening to our moments

opening to our regrets

but finding pages empty

those memories one forgets

and passing through all seasons

and passing through all lines

there among the stories

the tender times that rhyme…

we have scrawled such a story

acquainted with such a life

if we had more knowledge

would we face the door aright?

beating at the window

knocking on the walls

ignoring pains and process

ignoring breaks and falls

flying moths are dying

winter comes tonight

where the heat is waning

will there be another fight?

if we had more choices

if we had a second time

if we had more knowledge

would we face the door aright?

the night is not so black

 the night is not so black

not so dark

not so hidden

that we cannot see

the alleyways of the soul.

buried in the trash of these

the stench of these

the color of these

Red cries from within

the walls high and divided

muting the message and the pain.

and another steps in-

the solution is plain.

the culprit of all our problems

soon sitting at the bottom

below in a hole in the ground

and someone says, “it will be forever,”

and no one rises to test it

and no one rises to declare

the hole may be a hole

but no one seems to care.

and so we labor, so many in the blind

like scattered cats scattered wide,

troubled alleyways of the soul

confused by the refuse in the hole.

what will change to bring change

what will endure with the loss of sight

what will you do with the hole

that stands on the edge of night.

when i was on the ledge

 there is that crusty ledge-

with swordplay above

the sidewalk below

or the fire escape

with nowhere to go-

you think that you have me,

but I will not stay-

my heart is not touched

by your game of decay.

my mind is on Heaven

I stand to declare

while yours is on Hell

and baggage-filled care.

you call into question

the right and the pure

while your heart is rotten

with no earthly cure.

beware spreading rumors

beware spreading hate...

touch not God’s anointed

lest you be those now Late.

The first time

 The first time isn’t easy. You have to lean slightly to one side, shake a little bit, then look down and make sure you’re dry. And when you’ve finished, you must analyze the warm plastic cup and make sure you’ve filled it at least to the line. Next, you place the beaker-like container into a secret compartment where an unseen hand will reach in and extract the happy fluid…when you’re gone. You hope. And next time, you follow the same pattern, and maybe then you remain dry. The problem is…how do you practice peeing in a cup?

I was once a child…back in olden times. Thrown into an adult setting, white-coated people everywhere, I was given a speciman container and given confusing instructions about “catching the stream.” I walked into the restroom, took down my shorts, took one look at the huge-butted comode, another at the speciman “jar” and thought “you’ve got to be kidding. what am I supposed to do- again?” I pulled up my shorts and pants, went outside the door and tried to get a nurse’s attention. “What do I do again?” Do you know how silly it is to look up at Mattilda-the-Hun on steroids and ask “Do I pee into the poddie first or do I pee in the cup first?” I never quite understood her adult response, so I went back into the restroom feeling embarrassed and ready to pee in my shorts if I didn’t start playing fireman fast! Well, I tried to hold the bottle out and hit it a few times, and my hand, but I managed to fill the thing up past the line and almost overflowing. I washed my hands, pulled up my shorts and pants and went out the door to find the nurse. “I’m done.” She went in and pulled the cup from the back of the comode and marched past with a prize-winning jar of yellow stuff. One nurse moved out of the way in surprise- or was it envy?- and then I found my way back to the waiting room. Wow, peeing properly in a cup was a tiring experience…

But today, I have conquered the stream-method, I have mastered the moment-long spray in the cup. It is no longer me who is embarrassed about stream-catching, but rather the new young recruits to the pee-pee lab.

I asked the cute blonde what amount of euphoria convinced her to become a urine analysis expert. She said it was “just a job” and smiled, as if she was trying to think of frisky puppies or cute lop-eared bunnies. She had on one of those not-so-serious looking health care outfits with Eeyore and Pooh dancing across her…but what really stopped me was her vacuously happy smile. I imagined her going home to her husband…

“How was your day, honey?”

“Oh, the same as usual. Until this old guy came in.”

“Old guy?”

“Yeah, he was at least 35.”

“That’s old.”

“I know…”

But I don’t believe she likely told him about our ensuing conversation after I returned from the restroom…

“I was wondering…has anyone ever asked you how to practice for the urine speciman test?”

I say this because she looked at me like I was from the Bolivian Navy. It struck her, like a Time Rift.

“Like…I hadn’t thought of that!”

“Well, maybe you should…because, not everyone is as practiced as I am!”

Two Flies are better than one

 It was a horrible day at work, but at least I am not a Beijing washroom attendant. The latter, Chinese serfs with dubious fringe benefits, have been given a new directive- no more than two flies per stall. These are ironic rules for the potty police, who are already understaffed and overworked, considering that more people line up to give an offering at a porcelain protrusion in a Beijing restroom than cue up for a “Pin the Tail on the Zuckerberg” game at a “Stock Implosion Party.” Counting flies is serious business, and a whole lot of money should be thrown at the problem so that the communist government can justify a five-year plan.

But how…how…does one obey such a directive, considering five year plans may not include all the utilities for the plan in the first year or more?  Do attendants get fly swatters, portable fly-paper houses, or big-fat bug zappers? Or, do they mount this offensive while straddling white plumbing equipment? It seems to me that a policy requiring stall inspection would necessitate occupiers counting total fly populations while vacating their bowels, unless they were vacating the said stall areas to allow washroom attendants to do systematic checks.

Which leads me to the next logical question: if there is now a two fly policy, what was the former policy? In a country where babies are regulated, where ghost cities lie in wait for future generations, and where “reality” is manipulated by the government,  the regulation of flies in a metropolitan smog jungle restroom might actually seem logical. So, what was the former count? Surely there was a system in place that allowed for a particular number of flies per stall. I believe that number was chosen by a party leader who read a Fortune cookie prediction containing the lucky number. This makes perfect sense because these are the same people who have regulated the installation of strangely worded signs in fractured English throughout China as a part of the “Communist Party Comic Relief Program” for all English-speaking tourists. It’s just a shame  that they have to have a spy program so ubiquitous. It’s no wonder they are trying to eliminate the image of the Chinese “fly on the wall…”