The Guest May Never Know

Folks say that it was God,
Himself, who bent the sun
along it’s track,
sent the other stars
and planets
from or to then back.

A store-front preacher,
whom I know,
reads from a book
that’s very old,
breathes a quiet soliloquy.

The ancient tales
do comfort him and
I don’t flat-out
disagree, ‘cause
things more strange than
someone’s super powers,
science says, must be.

If Quarks with charm
don’t ring alarms,
then belief in God will certain not
do greater
intellectual harm.

Awareness stokes imagination.
“Where is it that I stand?
Out of whom or what
came my creation?
In which land
is ultimate my destination?”

All tall stories
told to me
argue what proof’s eye can’t see,

that while alive, the guest
may never know,
exact,
how universes grow.

The Clock Alone Has Time

Time,
the shining mother ship,
transports our trusting souls,
aloft, a-sail,
across the dome of space.

Wind and circumstance,
by strong or gentle motion,
bend what they are passing,
so can time be proven.
(A thing was here that now
is there. I am bald
who once had hair.)

Contrariwise,
I true believe,
we never leave the moment.
There is no was and
will no future
certain be,
though ebb and
flood, growth and death,
dream and memory
might
disagree.

The Proof

Suppose it true,
our solitary home a spinning rock,
flung across entirety
at fantastic speed.

I can almost feel the
wind of it,
loose hair much like
a comet-tail of frozen bits
as time
and every precious minute lived,
flows out behind.

This is a dazzling idea,
where
God and love and
power and fortune,
win and lose and
mighty oceans,
taxes and war and
constitutions
mean
nothing.
The proof of paradise
is imagination.

The Invention of Plastic/Sleeping In

I’ll bet
cave men caught
forty more winks
at the end of a night.
Og may have said,
as, at this moment, I yet might,
“Hell with it, today!”
since the breakfast fire
was a bitch to
light.

In cave days,
folks had basic hurdles
and nothing more to do
than eat or make love
and sleep until the sleeping
was through.
In this day,
with complex social machinery,
we make great 
hullabaloo
of ancient need or longings;
reproduction,
food and 
shelter, too.

Within our time,
we built good walls
around what was found
and free,
embellishing the easy
with modern and enlightened
filigree.
Life
got wrapped in plastic,
seems to me.

We orchestrate
and delegate,
designing work to do
and ‘He who lies abed,
does not move the world ahead’
rings true
but is there a
more important place
for me to be moving to?

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

©  16 mins ago   humor • nature • philosophy   

At The Deaths of Two Children

At The Deaths of Two Children

During a haunted day,
heavy grey sketched shadow corners
onto a kitchen scene complete,
where home’s Formica table,
stood as balance point surrounded.

On the sideboard,
a wooden spoon dripped slow,
resting, it’s brief battle done.
The smallest voices echoed
somewhere off, among
much
richer
flowers.

Shoulder to shoulder they sat,
deep sorrow creasing more the brow
of these familiar witnesses,
whose empty hands held coffee mugs
as anchor.
A newbie stumbled in,
head and heart at full spin.

“Oh, sweetie…”,
sang in sotto voce.
Summer froze
and everything burst together.

Moon Is innocent

What shines as moon is
dead rock,
in science theory coalesced
of material cast from earth
by the violence of ages
past.

Its surface cold,
at core, like earth,
the moon boils hot.
That is, perhaps,
why Shaman, priest and Gypsy claim
the moon has soul.
It does not.

The moon’s an empty mirror,
round, reflective…
staunch opponent to the
over-heated sun’s
hurled invective.
Between these two
are push, pull and season,
jealousy, love, myriad
treasons.

Revelation

Tired summer stripped off,
quitting the trees earlier each day
until a disguise of green dropped
in bold patterned,
bright coloured skirts down
around bony knees.

The hidden places are shown.

It now appears to the naked eye
that beast and bird, by nature knowing how,
built nests high,
collecting bunches of warm things,
dry twigs, torn fur, used feathers and,
stolen from the nearby grocery,
shards of a plastic bag or two.

Approaching winter, and its Ermine coat,
bold,
suffices now as dressing-screen
while the whole scene makes
changes, gets ready for tender
beginnings. This process works
as if to plan, so

have no fear of a cycle’s start or end.

Know that all the busy while of time,
innate skill does push and bend,
duck and weave,
foster, nurture, laugh, grieve,
and was,
before the lazy sun sloughed off to shine,
unseen.

Regarding Bill C-11 in the Canadian Parliament

The Internet Streaming Act or Bill C-11 is causing a major stir amongst service providers, less so among service users. Youtube claims that the act will cause Canadian content creators to lose their audience, not increase their audience as is the stated aim of the bill. Since the Canadian content creators have larger portions of their audience off shore than within the boundaries of Canada, I don’t understand how that is possible. If youtube is forced to change algorithms within Canada that promote Canadian content, how does that affect algorithms outside of Canada? The answer is: it doesn’t. Youtube claims that bill C-11 could potentially regulate the entire internet. That is hyperbole, the specifics of the bill are in regard of and in respect of Canadian content and streaming services in Canada. This is not the entire internet, it is not censorship in the sense that Youtube is implying, it is changing a promotion algorithm, not a content moderation. The content will still be there, in its original form but it will be farther down the feed if it is not Canadian created.

Everyone involved in this legislation is being untruthful. That means this legislation is bad legislation and should probably be avoided. At the core of the bill is a good idea that politics ran amok with and screwed up. Sigh

I don’t agree that politics or government has any business regulating what we may access via the internet with exceptions. Examples: without express permission granted, a person’s or an entity’s financial or health or other private, intimate information is off limits. Encouraging others to violence is off limits. Publishing falsehoods as truth is off limits. Otherwise, the internet should be wide open and offer free access to information that is not privately owned and under copyright. The information that is privately owned should be compensated for when it is distributed – in other words, no artist should have their work distributed without being paid. It is Youtube and other streaming services business model for said company to distribute work that is not their own property and for which they pay nothing. The regulations around that are what need to be addressed. If content creators or artists were compensated for the use of their work on the internet, the current unprofitable state of the music and art business would be avoided, we would have a wider choice of music, literature, art to enjoy…the little guy would be happy and Google would have to do something useful for their wages.

Revelations

Flagrant summer strips off
and the hidden places are shown,
collected bunches of warm things,
dry twigs, torn fur, used feathers and
a plastic bag or two,
floated from the nearby grocery.

Beast and bird, by nature knowing how,
built their nests secret, high,
out of sight,
safe against dark times, yet

no matter how innate construction skill,
all hopeful gathered homes are
make-shift, temporary,
not always to be
concealed by easy trees,
whose rich green
drops as bold patterned and bright coloured skirts
down around bony knees,
gets covered by a soft white.

After a time, in its turn,
winter surrenders that ermine coat,
exposes last season’s underbrush
where decay’s ancient tongue licked,
until heartbeat’s freshness could re-ignite,
flicker,
glow again seen.