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.

The Advice I Wish They'd Given Me at Graduation

Time changes things; feel free to date a girl you only like.
Never be early to a concert if your name is Mike.
In fact, never be early if you could be writing.
Solid's the best choice when none is exciting.
In fact, sometimes steady's better when exciting's there.
You can get involved sometimes, just try not to care.

Don't try to be cool.
It's not you.
It violates life and popularity's first rules.

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.