Merci Bucket

"Quam misera animalium superbissimi origo"

----Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Bk. VII, chp. 43.



1. Family
2. Lover
3. Friends
4. Health
5. Light
6. Sight
7. Grace
8. Taste
9. Tous les livres
10. Music
11. Dance
12. Impossibly long eyelashes
13. My automobile
14. Athleticism
15. The cooking skills of others

Stars Hands

I

Look up

Cast a score
of stars
                     enough for constellation

To assist and guide
                                     with constant fire
all relation

II

Hands fall
                           Drawn by
                                sidereal hues 
                                          of white cloth

Bury what blinds
                                    shut sky-laved eyes

                                                Let the kindling
                      of this spark
                                              ignite everything

Autumn Menagerie 23: Crush

So far past it whispers.

A realm of sinking

traces I cleave

to.......

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My tiny fists

crush the fabric

I loved.

I do not remember

her name.

Fragments on Dawkins

Dawkins' hubristic contempt for Religious faith is amusing. Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection and Adaptation stands and has more "empirical evidence" behind it---(Science, much like Religion, is just another value system--it has its liturgy, priests and ethos--it attempts to explain the world) Is it the last word? Who knows? But to entirely debase believers, as a Scientist, no less, is crass. Sir Isaac Newton, Decartes, Pascal and Leibniz---Men who Darwin respected and scientists who had faith. As if Dawkins could sneer at Newton or Pascal? I say this as a non-believer. Science itself requires faith. it's just another fideism, based on the belief that the human mind can etch out cosmic laws through empirical research, equations or hypotheses proven post-festum. Here I would like to pause and mention David Hume's argument against causal connections and progress in time in his A Treatise of Human Nature....Much of the pulp Dawkins writes is Scientific Gospel..Science has brought us closer to mapping the Atomic Nucleus, and with the very same knowledge, Nuclear Weaponry. Does Dawkins really believe in Progress through human intellect via science? Had he met or ever read Oppenheimer, Dirac or Wolfgang Pauli? I doubt it...He cherry picks and Propagandizes like a Vatican Official for his cause. Nothing wrong with that.......The only true Atheism is silence. For you admit a belief in Transcendence in utilizing shared signs and expecting to be understood. That's a Leap of Faith which ultimately leads to Deism. For who or what is the hidden third that endorses agreement? Even through the multiplicity of languages and their mutability and mortality, one ascribes a Deus Absconditus as the invisible third.

Hume also smashed the Intelligent Design theory in his Dialogues Against Natural Religion....He also intimated that science itself was a religion of man's ratio. Humans ascending the Cosmic Throne. Scientists use Hume carefully. Kant was so distraught over the skepticism in Hume's Treatise he was compelled to write his Critique of Pure Reason. These events occurred in the late 18th early 19th century. My how far Dawkins has progressed!

Autumn Menagerie 22: American Catiline

Young, bold and handsome,
the future spread before
him like a Field of Cloth
of Gold.

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Dreams spent.
Promise ground into
fine powder.
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He is Legion.

Train Song

I defy sleep
wrestling
dark angels.

Acres away
the muffled beat of boxcars 
rolls a perfect lullaby.
                                      Steady and dulcet as womb's tide,
                                      the train's wake muted restless flight.

Dawn

Morning,
Gray damp
dishrag skies
wrung out on
beds.

The alluvial
spread of
hair
spills 'cross
arms.

The cool and acute
touch takes us
from dull
tableaux.

Autumn Menagerie 21: The Town Crier

"By convention sweet and by convention bitter,
by convention hot, by convention cold,
by convention color: in reality atoms and void."
------------------ Democritus.


His words break the air
Like a toddler's toy.
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Laugh or cry
Over the gall.
We must die,
After all.

Time Is Relative

Time is a relative who wastes us by never leaving.

Awakening

Instant vertigo,

lines of light
run through
blinds

Dispelling
the mysterious topography
of dreams

Begin,
wiping eyes and rising,
to orient.

Autumn Menagerie 20: The Mass Shooter(Not Shown)

(Mass Shooter not shown in effort to refuse to feed anti-Muslim

turn of coverage[Latest story-"Shooter Shouted "Allahu Akbar""].

The man in photo is a spokesman and innocent of any wrongdoing.)

(Image courtesy of CBSNews)

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If only we had more guns

tragedies like these would

be less likely.

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The war machine has no head,

just appetite.

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Note:

Despite being a Muslim, the shooter was an officer

who acted as a Psychiatric Counselor to personnel

suffering PTSD's from action in theatres of war and

occupation.

It was well known he had severe misgivings about

the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Army promptly called him up to serve in

Afghanistan.

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" All's fair in love and war."

In Lieu of Fucking

Where notes of
our inspiration
become one.

I'll wear your
softness dalliantly,
invested with 

the full caress.

Let's not stir up dust.
It stings eyes.

In lieu of fucking,
let us cleave to 
sweet reverie
drunk on the
dulcet whisper,
"We."

The Factory Head

Hum of turbines
unsettles sleep.

A sidewalk unwinds
outside the factory.

It is not music or scenery,
 merely heads touching
     cold machinery.

The furnace still burns.
Black motes rise 
from ashen mouths

  To assemble dark lines
consuming word and deed.

Belinda

Bells end days.

Belinda
nicks Sol's
bright eye...

cool shining
Crown in the pocket
of eve's black shift.

Belinda,
ubiquitous trail
of fragrant exhalation.

Belinda,
triple tongue leap
of ecstatic invocation.

Shade cloaks the lie.

In her eyes,
those sibylline depths,
crafts founder.

Ode

Breath erodes.
Flesh leavens to endure.

We must part 
when Sun leaves the sky.
Desire sets, 
but desire does not die.

Autumn Menagerie 18: Solitude

Paris, Courtyard of The Museum of Arms, by A. D. .

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Solitary walker,

Astride sunshine

Gently settling over

cobble-stone.

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The gutters

Form a Tau

You are too distant

To note.

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Aloof and alone,

You brave ancient

Cannon.

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Foreboding shade

Of the entrance

Fails to induce

A turn.

Silent Night

So tiny
and greedy for light,
             the moon
             shines full
             then halved 
             to hidden.

We lift eyes upwards
and lose the way.

Without a feel
for the turn and
believe ourselves still.

A Prophet in New York

Suppose stars under feet.
An error,
mistaking a puddle's reflection
for a fallen scrap
of starry black sky.

Golden calves gild
civic altars.

Behind tinted glass
the Hidden God
passes.
                                      Astonished, I'm lost 
                                       to neon suggestion.
The Creator did not
extend His hand.

A pair of red beacons
recede into city's
Host of light.

Autumn Menagerie 17: Euphorion

"Look around now,

These are the days of the beggars and the choosers......

And it's hard to love, there's so much to hate...."

----"Praying for Time", George Michael.

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Timeless words, beautifully sung,

Always rise to fall on deaf ears.

Euphorion, beautiful man-child,

Helen weeps for you.

Autumn Menagerie 16: The Face of Zero

You are nothing, son.

Passed over by those

Who only acknowledge

Your existence by saying

You inhabit another world.

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Nothing explains

Murderous disparity.

Inequality decimates

By withholding

Surplus quantity.

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A lottery on a

Global scale;

No ticket, no life

Nothing to sell.

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You were born Zero,

A Negative Theology.