A Lesson Of Autumn

Gained knowledge informs the
window view, ordinarily pastoral.

Experience sees,
what a ‘mime-boundary’
reveals,
the transparency itself is glass,
the shadowing, heavy clouds are vapour.

Horizontal leaves
are known to be
afloat on fast moving gas.

Comforts of a well-lit room
separate
from cascading last
leaves of the year. Those
yellowed, browned, reddened
witnesses
end,
are blown to their death,
battered toward decay, by gusted howling
that
vacates the
north
ad nauseum.

This is Shift Season
which recurs,
recurs to be
sung of,
painted,
photographed and
written down again,
deja.

Each year,
here we return,
though never to the same place
of times ever
before,
earth and sun and season
all move together
along fate’s immense
line
through space with time.

There exists:
experience,
a changeing sameness
and new views that shall
become knowledge

until time stops,
which
it will.

I know the lessons of Autumn.

Netflix and Squirrels

Reflections on a Netflix documentary about David Geffen

Such brilliant sun as today’s casts a shadow of one telephone pole onto and across the rooftop next door. It is a cameo of telephone pole, street light and connecting wires projected on the roof. Where pole-shadow intersects the boundary created by roof-peak, I see a squirrel. He/she is poking a curious head and shoulders up above the shadow-roof intersection. They are just sitting in the shade, thinking. In truth, I can only suppose they are thinking, I do not know. It is not necessarily an accepted fact. I am not a squirrel expert, a researcher, a squirrel whisperer. I have no friends who are. I am not David Suzuki. Still, the squirrel is thinking, that is what I see, what I imagine, that is real to me.
I can safely assume that the shadow squirrel is not thinking about politics, the future of democracy and capitalism, the abuse to earth and her creatures, her flora, her water by billionaires – or the life and times of David Geffen. I am thinking about these things. I am thinking about capitalism and David Geffen and the squirrel on the roof.

Personal observation of the animal kingdom lends an element of conviction to my understanding of things. I am sitting at my window and I am thinking. I see and I understand based on my prejudices, my experiences, my history. I understand that the animal kingdom has little regard for, bears little resemblance to the human kingdom. I understand this because the animals cross streets in the middle of the block, disregard stop signs, help themselves to whatever is not locked down tight. They make noise as they deem necessary and ignore that my car has been freshly washed when answering certain calls of nature. The creatures look at me and stand their ground when I try to ‘shoo’ them away. They must know I am not going to shoot them or harm them or call them names. I do eat them, sometimes. I enjoy that. I enjoy eating them but I don’t enjoy killing them or even shoo-ing them away.

I don’t think the animals are capitalists but I do believe that capitalists can be animals. The squirrel who is watching me, possibly or just thinking, is not a capitalist. He is not a capitalist even though he saves various things, hiding them to eat later – like putting money in a savings account. He is not a capitalist because I don’t observe capitalist behaviour. This head and shoulders of a squirrel is not earning walnuts from the labour of lesser squirrels. He is not searching more and more profits, greater and greater rewards. He is just thinking. He is resting. He will go out later and search for enough. He looks happy. He seems satisfied. He will live until he dies.

The squirrel is not profoundly unsatisfied, I think. He is not David Geffen Squirrel, he is Ordinary Squirrel. David Geffen does not have enough, the squirrel has enough. I have heard from the lips of David Geffen and from the pen of music business journalists that there is unkindness and lying and cheating and such going on in the David Geffen world. I don’t think that happens in the life of Ordinary Squirrel. I am not certain the squirrel is observed to be kind to other squirrels, there have been squabbles, but for the most, he/she/they scamper amongst others of like species on what seems to be an equal basis. This shadow-squirrel is just thinking, he is resting, he is not planning (maybe not), not scheming (maybe not), not feeling an urge for anything more (maybe not.)

David Geffen has everything (by whichever method you believe it was obtained, the method was capitalism at root). I am not a David Geffen scholar, researcher or observer but I have witnessed his unhappiness on my tv set and in the magazines. He was disappointed in Laura Nyro leaving his management and going to Columbia Records. He thought she was using him. As to whom was using whom, I have my own opinion. She broke the rules, she crossed in the middle of the block. This made David angry and hurt. David expected Laura to obey the rules of human(David)kind. I have an opinion about that. I formed my opinion of David Geffen based on what Mr. Geffen did. I have seen him crossing the road in the middle of the block, ignoring the stop signs and refusing to be ‘shooed’ away. He is like a squirrel or other creature in that way. He disregards the rules of humankind, like Ordinary Squirrel does. He was hurt when Laura Nyro did the same, when she broke his rules.

There is a great difference between Ordinary Squirrel and David Geffen, though. I think David Geffen has everything but he does not have enough. Ordinary Squirrel only has enough. I think it is capitalism that creates a situation where David Geffen does not have enough. Msr. Ordinary Squirrel has enough, he stops at a point and hibernates a little bit. Ordinary Squirrel may have a quest each year, he may seek, grab, bury each year. Ordinary Squirrel does these things but he does not do them because he believes it will make him a better squirrel. He does not do them for self-gratification. He does not believe that burying, hiding, squirreling away will do anything more than prepare him for the winter ahead. He doesn’t make other squirrels do the work. He doesn’t use his ‘items hidden away’ to create more items to hide away. He has enough.

Capitalism’s root and focus is on more and more and more, better and better and better. Out with the old, in with the new. There is no other need or definition for capitalism. The whole idea is to use capital to create capital and on and on and on. It, as an economic system, has no purpose beyond expansion. Life, in the pure, isn’t like that. Life is enough. Life is it’s own purpose. Life stops for a second and watches me from atop the garage roof, in the shade. Maybe it hums a little tune that was recorded and sold by David Geffen on Asylum Records or Geffen Records but the tune could not be owned or controlled. The tune was written by someone else and sung by someone else, it is now hummed for free by a squirrel on the roof. David Geffen bought it and sold it and wasn’t satisfied but the squirrel was. He sits, thinks, hums the tune. Maybe it is ‘Sweet Judy Blue Eyes’ or ‘The Three Great Stimulants’.

The Invention of Plastic

I’ll bet
cave men caught
an extra forty winks,
said, “Hell with it..”
a time or two since
the breakfast fire
was a bitch to
light
and there was no mortgage due,
nothing
of dire import more to do
than sleep until the sleeping
was through.

Ours is
artful act
and very much ado,
about the same old nothings;
finding food and shelter,
reproducing, too.

Modern life’s accomplished
with a, “Git ‘er done..”
attitude
and complicated systems
we pledge allegiance
to.

Within our time,
we built a world
from what was found
and free,
embellishing with
modern and enlightened
filigree.
Life
gets wrapped in plastic,
seems to me.

Now,
there’s orchestrated work to do
and
‘He who lies abed,
does not move ahead’
might ring true
but where in hell exactly
is this ‘he’
a-going to?

Let me roll over
and curse me not,
at the moment, I’m
in a nice, warm,
pleasant sort of
spot.

Pussy Cats, Candy Crush and Angry Birds

Have you noticed, I have, that politics are poison? A poison made more deadly by the delivery device? Yeah? Why? I think I know why and I think I know a lot of other illusory stuff, too. I am pretty smart. I am smart like a TV or a phone. Today, everyone has an opinion and few have tangible, provable by the five senses fact. Here goes; In politics, a slicked-hair slimeball on the back observation point of some slow-moving train is visible, can be evaluated. You can see the Brylcream dripping onto the collar, Giuliani style. Leaning on the rail, he/she politico has a certain taste, they are up-close and…poisonal. They are resistable. We can say, “Lookie there! Nasty, nasty, nasty!” and it is true. That slow train is in the past, now is the hour of Social media, Television, email, all of which have their unique flavour, their definite taste while poison is being dispensed. They add a little something dangerous. A subterfuge. Concealed death.

Social media seems close to main-line injection of poison, television to skin-popping and email the closest to just sniffing a few white lies up from the mirror. Socials are so direct, so much in your face, so addictive, so powerful in image, so quick. We become pussycats, pawing after the blinking lights without thought. In the case of television, politics takes a little time to crawl into view and we are more familiar, it’s been around long enough for us to have been badly burned by sitting too close. We learned. Television is a box we have grown accustomed to, any false-smiling face there is just another…we know these folks/snakes. They offer the very best and shiniest red of apples but we understand that ‘new and improved’ are meaningless words.

To communicate poison, the much ado-at-the-time Email worked but it required a modicum of thought/consideration/communication and is fast fading from view as did the personal letter before that. Perhaps faster? Email and letters have a longevity or impact problem. Without pictures of carnage or breasts or bums…we fill in detail at our own discretion. Our discretion is ours, it is our prejudice, our misconception, our imagination. Our knowledge is needed to create an electrical buzz. Our own discretion is less maleable than the hypnotic and everchanging bright lights of Social Media.

ooooh! With Social Media, we are at a party, a Hollywood party, far up in the hills. Everyone in the frame of view is sexy, perfect, they seem confident. Folks visiting the party here are from all over the world. Famous people, the hangers-on and the nobodys. All of us have wireless access, wi-fi. The gory details, the messy lies, the scandals are at the touch or tap of a finger. It’s electric. We carry our charging cables, searching an open outlet while Papparazzi chase innocents up the long, rocky driveway until their vehicles overturn, spilling fodder for the front page. Excuse me, it is not a front page, it is a NEWSFEED. From time to time, a flashbulb of resentment overheats and shatters, scaring the dickens out of ordinary folk next door or the kitchen help.

Through all of this, we are the common pussycat, distracted by nearly 3d High Definition fish swimming by, that is not disrupted with a paw. We bat and bat at the screen to no avail. It SEEMS so real, you could reach out and almost touch…

…and that is what is wrong. The almost-touching, not the warm, bloody, smelly, lovely, breathing, understanding, sharing kind of touching. The touch-touching is not possible with our heads down and the back-lit screens on. The pressure of choking on wacky-but-too-fast-to-evaluate somewhat believable politics, entertainment, living is building up. We are going to have to get used to that.

These are the Days

‘These are the days, my friends,
these are the days.’ – Philip Glass

This is the day, my friend,
this is the only day,
the solitary time
for you to read
what I have
to say.

This is the minute,
it is you
and
I.

You cannot hear much screaming.
from the place where
I sit writing,

so nothing proves that
somewhere, seven
billion other
scenes
exist.

In the place you stand (or sit), reading,
nothing shines more
real than what’s
created
by us.

I pass the page and you breathe deep.

A sun-lit window opens up
and autumn breeze can
grab the curtains,
give them
gentlest
shake.

An auto moves, eternal quest,
with doppler wave-like
hushed-roar past,
we move it
slow or
fast.

It’s My left toe that’s your left toe
and this colour red,
yours at my
behest.

Let’s build between
a moment’s peace
and quiet place
to rest.

Residue

I don’t know
where a boy
or girl might go

at the end but
all atoms remain
of the gone.
Then,
do the gone
really go?

Shapes and clusters
change, decompose,
remain,
ready to rearrange
or trade clothes.

When a star
(which I once was)
collects a little of
leftover unattractive
stuff and shines because,
the less handsome
become
beautiful.

One law
in the book
says,
“There is conservation of matter”.

I am matter,
you matter…
the two or more of us
matter.
Matter cannot be
created
or destroyed,
it becomes
another thing, maybe
it’s
‘doesn’t matter’.

Isn’t that a sort of immortality?

Whether God
says you are
cool
or
not
when you finally get up to the door,
your spinning electricity
still gets in,
maybe as a smudge
on the high heel
of some kind of
good president’s
wife.
Don’t argue with me about this.

Stars

Sometimes,
when it’s still,
I sing to hear the sound
and wonder if
our dusty-brown
birds do this, too.

Though worksong’s of
great import every day,
there must be time and room
for play.

In this way,
I dream
the creatures call each other
silly names at times,
sole to hear
them echoed back
when humdrum’s sun
climbs.

Further, yet, my theory is:
life keeps an hour
divine
for each and all to game at love.

The proof of this glows
high above earth’s
sorrow-rutted lane,
where all the many million stars
twinkle not
in vain.

Life, For God’s Sake

I had the most amazing breakfast. It wasn’t much but it impressed me. I feel the need to discuss. That humankind should find any meal an interesting subject for discussion amuses me. I know why I am amused. I see the incongruity of bothering to discuss breakfast when we have God or art or political theory to hash out. I laugh at that. I and many, keep an erroneous view that we are or can be more than ‘enjoying and discussing our food’. I often believe that such discussion is an inconsequential, secondary topic. Discussion should be reserved for something else, something more world-changing, earth-shaking. So, I laugh at the idea of discussing breakfast.

We/I have/hold on to an illusion that eating breakfast, defecating, fornicating and all other related processes are mundane. Such stuff is the background noise, the autonomous system of something greater. The quiet side of a more sophisticated pursuit. It is the small side of thinking that notices breakfast. The pure mind is higher. I am asking myself, “Do thoughts, dreams, emotions, scandals, politics, theologies really amount to something more important than burping and farting?” My guess, my gut feeling, my intuition says, “No..”. That’s why I laugh and others laugh at the mundane. There is nothing funnier than farting. It proves life amidst the noise.

What could ever be more important than awareness of life in whichever way and upon whichever realization that awareness manifests? I am aware of the taste of hastily prepared strawberries and a three-egg omelette with inexpensive cheese shredded on top. That awareness is the absolute core of being. Isn’t it? I fart, therefore I am?

I am also aware of the tragedy that November brings around each year. A tragedy to me, a something far more important than enjoying breakfast. A something that still needs deep discussion, as it involves so much. A happening that has potential to deepen understanding. Sometimes, the importance of understanding the whys and wherefores of existance seems to trump the importance of the enjoyment of a simple meal. An important thing happened to and with my family in November – so horrible, so awful, so deeply disturbing and so long ago. Yesterday, I got lost a while in the re-imaging (not imagining – imaging, I was seeing it) of the saddest ever scene. It took my heartbeat away for a while and hasn’t done so for a number of years. I was then and am today, destroyed by those events I could not control and could not prevent. …and? I feel pain, therefore I am but it wasn’t more important, significant than a simple breakfast. Those things are equal. All things are equal and miraculous, even-Steven. None should supercede.

I am, I continue.

There was a horrible event once and there was breakfast today. I am, I continue. There is understanding of the universe, our place in it, the reasons why for things and there was breakfast today. I am, I continue. There is war in Ukraine and there was breakfast today. I am, I continue. There is God or is not and there was breakfast today. I am, I continue. Others suffer, I suffer…there was breakfast today. I am, I continue.

That is almost a heartbeat, isn’t it? I am, I continue.

Here I go again with the miracles idea…. I don’t now and never did truly need a weeping Mary or the crossing of a divided sea on foot or a resurrection or a Messiah. Nah. There was breakfast today, I am, I continue.

My fingers hurt from advanced arthritis. I am, I continue.
I can’t pee the way I used to be able. I am, I continue.
My knee hurts. I am, I continue.
My hip is ceramic. I am, I continue.

There are birds, dogs, cats, clouds, moons, stars.
There is day, night, twilight. There are the most peculiar plants.
I am, I continue.

I pooped.

I am, I continue. There is nothing more important than the moment. That moment can never be anything other than OK. All that is is all good. There are bumps in the road… There is an occasional delicious breakfast… There is falling in love… There is enmity… Some of these things are good, some better, some less so, some actually bad/painful. It is still good, still proof of life. Yeah, I wish for a life in heaven, righteousness, significance, for understanding, for a more telling proof of life than breakfast and a cuppa but it is here, anyway. Once in a while, I can see it when I step back at the flavour of strawberry, at the intervals in “Clair De Lune”, at the utter grief of grief.

Someday, I may learn to cook more than an omellette. I may understand God. I may understand the ebb and flood of living but in the meantime, I am and I continue. Each moment is miraculous.

Sunflowers

Work and my season now
done, I seek for the power
of deep wine with bread.
A light touch of breeze and
sun bless my head,
hatless, this hour
by the sunflower
garden.

The tall plants are placed here as
‘decor’ meant to lift spirits
but I sense they are something more.
Each one reminds of
an old woman bending,
her faded hair of former yellow petal,
drooping in curls
at summer’s ending.

This one near, and her companions,
seem
bedraggled, former girls
whom even the bees have left,
finding no further sustenance at breast.

As I now do,
the giant blossums rest.
Sun angles late and
of their burden seed,
these vessels become
soon bereft.

In the proper time,
all earnest labour reappears,
and freshened blooms toil,
upward from the thousand pin-striped,
ripened tears
that found rich autumn’s
ready soil.

This will happen
again,
and again,
until some brash awakening
changes the pattern’s
shape,
improves upon an old design.

In the meanwhile,
to a uniformed waiter
who offers salvation’s quiet smile,
I sigh, “A cuppa coffee?
Yes, thank you, that would be fine.”

Conversations About God

I schemed that
birds had conversations
on a rooftop edge adjacent
to the window casement.
My eager heart imagined them
set about a Sunday’s reflections,
quiet amongst themselves.

These beasts are nature’s genteel wings,
feathered in the very best
goin’-to-town-brown,
and it seemed, for a moment,
in private terms,
they shared much more than sing-
ing
before one,
then two
and three flew down,
resumed attacking worms.

What’s real congeals
by consensus, the root of fact;
that sky above is empty black
and atmosphere’s what sun lights blue.
Under majority’s rule
we see things true;
that life exists in myriad ways
and days aren’t endless,
they fly away
as my talking Sunday birds did do.

Time has limits, I suppose.
It came from somewhere,
how it ends,
who knows?

Perhaps,
as we often do,
the birds discussed this,
deciding the which,
the what and the who,