1. Some Sentences for Free (or, Pounding Pavements)
“Ain’t no question that hasn’t yet been asked.”
This proposition just occurred to me.
A challenge with which we moderns are tasked:
to confound AI and ChatGPT
with queries that have never yet been voiced.
Just give it a shot! I doubt you’ll do it.
“Are the moons of Jupiter dry or moist?”
I don’t know, and I cannot intuit.
I’d say the world is ripe for better statements,
and after all they make for better trade.
My questions only lead to pounding pavements;
I’ve asked a ton but never gotten paid.
But I am wont to waive my poet’s fee,
so here they are - some sentences for free.
2. Our World Through Song
We explain the world to ourselves through song.
The explanations help us get along,
although at times we know we get them wrong.
We register the world in melodies
that soar above our troubles and their trees.
We slow march duples, then we waltz in threes.
We vivify our world through piping tunes.
Wherever Jagger or Fitzgerald croons,
the clouds are prinked with colorful balloons.
Through song we organize our world of sound
and sonify our space from sky to ground -
our home, our womb, our grave, our lost and found.
And what we know through song is all we’ll know
from when we come until the time we go.
3. In My Carafe
Throughout my life I’ve had a lot of fun.
I’ve often thought that this has been the point
that I’m supposed to learn beneath our sun
and upon this astrophysical joint
that we call Earth (the Japanese, Chikyū).
I’m here to experience life as joy
and encourage others to say thank you
to both the cosmos and the Cosmic Roi
for permitting life to giggle a bit
and to let down its hair from time to time.
“Gaia needs must bounce and jiggle a tit
to suckle Titans born of Uranus’s slime!”
And precisely such a vision makes me laugh.
Let’s see what else I’ve got in my carafe!
4. Tit for Tat (or, Like Garbo and Ali)
We all must free ourselves from this or that.
It’s part of what we call being human,
freedom and duty battling tit for tat
from Socrates to Alfred E. Newman.
History is a fight for the former
in its enlargement over the latter -
from pies stolen by Little Jack Horner
to the crazy whims of the Mad Hatter.
And Kant was moved to write his three critiques,
inserting himself as referee
between brash moderns and stodgy antiques
so Aufklärung could get on merrily
and through our duties we could all be free
to pout like Garbo or box like Ali.
5. Words Bound Up in a Skein
Poetry’s for when the mind relaxes.
We unravel words bound up in a skein
of today’s challenges, triumphs, and snags.
The finer poets rarely wield axes
except when, in a satirical vein,
they play the role of societal wags,
take to verse to protest the king’s taxes,
tell Parliament to “stay in its own lane,”
dilate scathingly on how culture lags
behind science in the mins and maxes
of its stalled accomplishments (to be plain)
as it senesces in its forlorn rags…
(This image I’ve borrowed from good old Jack -
last sentence of On the Road, looking back.)
6. Invitation to a Blank Slate Visit (or, Ciphered Down to Null)
I ain’t got no thoughts in my head just now.
At times my mind’s a tabula rasa.
But it’s cozy today behind my brow,
so come on in! Mi casa es su casa.
We’ll have a chat and drink a cup of wine.
I’ll tell you all I know about Spinoza,
and you’ll deliver your advice on ants.
For lunch I’ll steam up some mean gyoza.
We’ll pile my moldered thoughts in stacks with twine,
or bury them as mulch beneath some plants
so choicer fruit will cluster on the vine.
We’ll end the visit with a cheery dance.
And I’ll reciprocate when your brain’s dull
and when all your symbols have ciphered down to null.
7. Funny Signs, Funnier Lines (or, Ufaka Trump!)
- with thanks to Holland Henderson -
The Japanese word for sick is byouki -
one of their several sick-sounding words.
Today, indeed, I’m feeling rather pukey.
I’m not at my piano pounding thirds,
nor am I striving to channel Spenser,
Sappho, Li Po, Rabelais, or Camus.
I’m resting near my Advil dispenser,
thinking of something to think, say, or do.
The No Kings rallies served up quite a dish.
I watched them from my television stump.
The marchers brandished many funny signs,
some underscored with yet funnier lines.
One drew Trump like the famed Hawaiian fish:
Humuhumunukunuku UFaka Trump!
8. Daily Wordle
Lots you can do when your mind is empty.
It’s good at times to give your brain a rest
and put the brake on thoughts peremptory.
Your best-laid plans will not be second-guessed,
and nor will you forget your umbrella
as your mind descends from weightier stuff.
You won’t mistake the shoe polish for the Nutella,
efFECT for AFfect, Macbeth for Macduff.
Most recently, I owe The New York Times
a round of thanks for their daily Wordle
as a break from this Matterhorn of rhymes
I need to surmount like Yertle the Turtle.
Yesterday my entry word was “adieu.”
I correctly grabbed “ideal” as Guess #2.
9. Plantar Fasciitis
Damn fascists! Now they’re attacking my feet.
Yes, I’m down and out with plantar fasciitis.
Everything is great, my life is complete…
yet my feet are breaking down as if to spite this!
Nobody ever plans on getting old;
we seldom really know what we’re in for.
“Wisdom will come with years.” Or so we’re told!
Life seems like exiting through the in door:
as soon as we enter we age right back out,
as in the tale of Benjamin Button.
Our kids wonder what we’re raging about.
They’ll know soon enough…all of a sudden
when the pain creeps in from the toes to the sole,
which these ice pads are only supposed to dull!
10. Something Else
I often ponder where they’ll send me next -
in my next incarnation, that’s to say.
Will they shoot me into that starry text
light centuries beyond the Milky Way
to help some new cerebral-cortexed race,
or consign me once more to Mother Earth?
And what shall be the contours of my face,
the precise coordinates of my birth?
Will I have these selfsame eyes and nose?
And whom will I be predestined to love?
Will she spring from Dodona, or out of a hose?
Will we blend or part when push comes to shove?
Yes, the afterlife may seem like pure conceit.
But somewhere, as something else, we’re bound to repeat.
11. Promise to Angels (or, Odd Man Out)
Angels, I’m taking care of the vessel.
Just trust that I’ll return it in good shape.
I’d say your greatest bane must be to wrestle
mortals always attempting to escape
the drudgery of maintenance and self-care
necessitated through inspiriting clay.
We clamor for the high life of Bel Air
yet disregard the stench of pure decay
that billows up through cracks in the facade
when flesh begins to rot as we get rich.
Of course, we always out the man who’s odd!
That’s me. I’m steering clear. I’ve found my niche.
Dear angels, I will give it back when asked -
this vessel and its care with which I’m tasked.
12. The Benefits of Being Overheard
To write a poem, you overhear yourself.
You drop a microphone beneath your eaves
and shrink yourself down to your inner elf.
Ignore him while he silently retrieves,
from all the clutter in your frontal lobe,
the choicer specimens of random thought
that float around that hemispheric globe
when semic spools unravel - slack, untaut.
A “mini-you,” this Puckish little gnome,
who often obfuscates your day’s affairs.
You sometimes will forget that he’s your own
as he stacks up the nooks and hidden lairs
with mounds from which you’ll snatch the choicest word.
We benefit from being overheard!
13. Journey to Circadia (or, This Livelong Day)
Alright, brother, now take a little rest.
You’ve had enough to do this livelong day.
The kitchen is clean, and gone is the guest
who left your basement tools in disarray.
Now promptly go upstairs and hit the sack.
There’s nothing left to think or do or say.
Your angels and your wife all have your back.
Your good deeds shall absolve your need to pray.
Just settle in and close your weary lids.
Enjoy your journey to Circadia.
You’ll sport with nude and buxom Caryatids
and stately, undemasked Palladia.
I’ll greet you on the other side of dawn.
We’ll drink some morning Joe out on the lawn.
14. Crafty Écriture
I’ll add these to the world’s entertainments.
They’ll be made available for streaming
or download directly into the brain.
And AI will flesh out a scene for each
and deck each out in suitable raiments
to clothe the sprites with which each one is teaming.
The visuals will make their meanings plain.
This technology must be within reach!
My folks will receive posthumous payments.
It will be a family redeeming
for the poverty of poetic pain
suffered by those who plunder thought and speech
as they carve out their crafty écriture,
hoping at least some of it will endure.
15. Energeia
Today I’m lacking in energeia
and falling short of my full potential.
YouTube’s a lazy man’s panacea…
which I’m sure he’d find self-evidential.
That’s to say, I’m sure that Aristotle
would warn young Alexander against it
if they floated their ghosts in a bottle
to modern shores.
For years we’ve all sensed it,
this feeling that the Internet’s no good
for the maintenance of contact - human,
physical contact with other humans…
maybe also with spiritual numens,
who are there to obscure and illumine
all that to us remains misunderstood.
16. Throne for a Sunken Arse
Nostalgia indicates that one has stalled.
Not all the time, but sometimes this is true.
Last time I brought this up, a friend was galled
to think that memories had made him blue
and - dwelling on them - dull and inactive.
I told him he should focus on what lies
ahead - that this would be more impactive.
(Yes yes, I’m aware that “impactive” flies
against the hegemonic “impactful”
as the more commonly heard of the pair.
But F. Scott used it, and he was tactful
in his word choice - in fact, beyond compare.
((And that reminds me of Trump’s Gatsby farce:
some ballroom glitz and a throne for his sunken arse!))
17. Our Era Wrapped Up in a Single Sentence
Our era is one of commentary,
meaning humanity’s taking a rest
from anything but complimentary
afterthoughts, follow-ups, and addenda
on problems that were already addressed
by a previous era’s agenda,
one more motored by actions than our own…
which isn’t to say that we’re doing squat,
but rather that our ambition has flown
from questioning what is and what is not
expedient to human furtherance,
to keeping the world safe for human growth
and atoning for our impertinence
that stems from greed or ignorance or both.
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