As Is

if I am not to write anymore
what will I do with thoughts
they will continue to arise
sometimes seeming to progress
toward the firmer grasp I need
to validate myself and others
 
I want to know the world as is
but capable of improvement
so much wrong is worsening
through wrong understanding
while I just manage to go on
what I can do already done
 
still I wonder what will happen
will the young be wise enough
and diligent to save the world
there is nothing else we live
creating patterns that live on

let them be better without me

Risiblle History

 are you serious
do I have to be
I'd rather reveal
risible history
cheer us all up
we need it badly

Trapped

I'm so far left I don't know I've left the real world behind
I don't even know I'm left
I think I'm in the center
and this is it
but it isn't really like that
the center has fallen over the edge into the north sea
the pitiful remnant clinging to the old reality left behind
or swept into the trashpit of irrelevance
people with taste
and no price
are hopelessly outnumbered
everything is ruined and they go right on
we all do
trapped

Already Wise

can I sit and think
what about without
putting it in words
to be written out
 
am I come undone
nothing I can do
nowhere I can go
dependent on you
 
and you on me of
course already wise
to how it goes
even poetry dies

Smithereens

why must the family tree be
espaliered wouldn't it be better
growing wild reaching for light
in all directions finding form as it
goes along sprouting branching
interconnecting every which way
stiff Smiths become Smithereens

Only Existing

what does meaning mean
is there such a thing at all
or is there only existing
and that has to be enough
sophomoric doubts remain
like where is the real me
inside this superficial twit
have I lost myself forever

Flying Friend

 for Theo Ehrhardt
 
ten years ago he was depressed
now he's manic about music and
Ukraine singing with a choir and
flaunting the colors flying friend
 
youthful earnestness and optimism
seasoned by decades being bipolar
still helps any situation needing help
and doesn't every virtually all the time
 
I assumed he was like me and took
his cheer and helpfulness for good
character and it truly is despite his
varying mood he only wants to help

Real Enough

philosophy in action tells me
sometimes I get to be funny
earth medicine helps remember
everything will still be real or
real enough to make an impression
that's what matters isn't it true
the day is much like any other
serious only if you want it to be

A Simple Rule

 that's so drop dead right on
I can't believe I thought of it
and bothered to write it down
before it dissolved again into a
fog of unrealized potential I
don't really understand how it
works computational equivalence
suggests it's simpler than it looks
and that's the way it seems to me
a simple rule complicated result
the underlying principle is life

On the Rise

how far we are from what's going on

some people still have fun and think

the world exists the way it always did

we alone realize it's almost over well

we're old and it's almost over for us

younger people still have to go on living

we don't like crowds couldn't sit through

a Broadways show kleenex in our ears

against the amplification vulgarity on

the rise as always and we don't miss it