Only Nature

Some say, in quiet, nature hums.
It's their excuse to play their drums.
Deep in the throes of tie-die dreams
They talk of nature's harmony.

The only nature I know is
A place no hippie's fit to live,
A place that's red in tooth and claw
'Neath anarchy of Darwin's law,
A place of stingers, spikes and thorns,
Where all from man to ant make war.

No, Galileo!

I used to think you circled me
In deep orbit.
I used to think there was something
That held you to me.
I was looking too hard for you
To see.

I am no Galileo.
You are the attractive one.
I am the attracted one,
and I should have known.

I am spinning in circles.

She Is Like Water

She is like water –
Seventy percent of my world.

She is like water –
Almost unbelievably common.

She is like water –
She washes the day's grime away.

She is like water –
Almost unbelievably awesome.

She is like water –
Perfect, by nature or design.
She is part of me –
Temporarily mine.

Anecdotal Proof of Chemical Imbalance in the Human Brain

Today, I did things I should
Things I wanted
and thinks I should want.
I read, wrote and studied.
I listened to good music
and used the one-track repeat
For one charitably called lousy,
The kind that gets me excited
Though I only sort of like it,
and then I ran around like
A low, wide, wild man-island
Pushing up with only the sea around me.
Then I joked and I talked,
and for the first time in a long one, I listened,
The first time this week I was present and not missing.


It's hard to believe I was depressed when I woke up this morning.

Molten Core

I simmer and seethe with a molten core,
Which ripples and roils, just waiting to roar,
With a furious fire that thirsts for fuel,
Too violent and thoughtless to truly be cruel.
Or perhaps the truth is that I am the core,
Painted up fancy to look like I'm more.

Branches and Roots

The heart has thousands of branches and roots
Spread high as the forehead and deeper than boots,
Drawing forth sustenance, pushing forth waste,
Growing as needed, as anchored in place.
and as trees play the pendulum, swing in rhythm and creak,
So does the heart keep time, thump and beat
From its place on the left, felt by nerves going right,
Asleep's still awake to the rhythm of life.

On Our Planet

The greatest force on our planet is polar, but not magnetic.
It's soft and yielding.  In small quantities it seems almost pathetic,
But in great torrents, it carves canyons and cliffs and great natural steeples.
Goldilocks would love it.  Too much or too little is lethal.
It's clear.  It's barely there.  It seems you can hardly see it,
But it seems like it's everywhere and you always seem to need it.

Strange

Wolves live in families and run miles of range,
So no one's surprised or considers it strange
That when dogs are in great numbers and small spaces caged
They react strongly, with violence and desperate rage.
Ancient humanity lived as wolves, in their day,
So why are we shocked when we react the same way?

Arranged

Theirs is a high-rising life, arranged in columns or rows.
They don't have to be told to live thus. They just know
That the work is their life, the rewards not theirs to hold.
The know not to think about it, but they'll do it 'til too old,
'Til the time comes that they need shoving aside, and replaced.
There's no membership here. They're just bodies, fill space.
They don't ask what they work for or consider it, unseen.
This is right. It's assumed. To question is obscene.
They produce, but don't keep, distributed sustenance to score.
They just get their signal, get up, work some more.
When they're waking, they're working. They don't get much sleep,
and neither do we.

If You Think

We don't. We take “regular things” for granted,
But how much of life is weird when you think about it?
Stuff cannot occupy the same space, can be hard, is nearly empty.
We drink the same water as dinosaurs did (though they had plenty).
The most highly, precariously evolved animals on earth
Live in great hives like the meanest, thoughtless insects.
And time? It's a puzzle inside a paradox inside a huge freakin' mess.
It moves like the Flash and Mercury had a kid and bought it a Porsche.
We eagerly take money, made out of trees, for it,
The ultimate in natural, unrenewable resources,
Despite knowing, sure as oil, that we'll never get it back.

We are not currently researching a man-made substitute.

And how about the human personality?
They're like us – seven billion and all weird.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, you can predict future acts
Based on careful observation of a person's past,
Except when you can't.
What's up with that?

An Inviolate Line

For something that draws an inviolate line
Nothing finds gaps in our vision like time.
Nor can anything be so straight, yet so twisted
As the thread that joins moments we can't quite prove existed,
Sews a past and a future that are never here together.
History repeats itself, but the present is forever.

Bus Schedule

My existence is an electron bus schedule
That finds an arcane water cycle helpful
In maintaining the proper volume and speed.
There are obvious, significant energy needs.

Like Cats

We crawl over this world, like cats on covers.
History lies below, incomplete and half-discovered,
All knowledge, which we must seek and save and hoard,
and, because it's incomplete, assiduously record.
A thousand years of treading light or pawing at the earth
Reveals but a part of all there was to its (and our own) birth.
Let's commit it to paper, so it may still be found
When we (and electricity) no longer here abound.

Chemical Breakdown

You need all the right bonds to make sugar sweet,
But can soon be destroyed when exposed to the heat.
Salt is savory, and takes the heat okay,
But at the first fall of rain, its bonds melt away.

Among Many

The sun may be our treasure, but it's common.
Among many like it, it's but the closest one.
Nor is earth a diamond in a galaxy of stone.
There are planets everywhere; in that, we're not alone,
But in a great family of planets, we know only one with life

And several possible reasons why.

Though many planets form, forming life may be hard,
Or the universe crawls with cells, but not gathered like we are.
Perhaps it is intelligence that is rare, an accident, by chance barred,
But it might just be too expensive to travel the stars.