Saturday, July 5, 2025
Boomer Rhymes
Prussian pride got humbled when the Third Reich bumbled.
Jap zeroes shot down; Yanks drop atoms on Hiroshima town.
Nuclear age begins; nobody knows who wins. Nobody knows how
the story ends. We do know how it began: Adam and Eve from Eden ran.
Jews declare Israel; Muslims follow Ishmail.
Land of the Free at rest; Home of the Brave aced the Test. There was this new thing called TV. . . with Donald and Minnie and Mickey, Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone; Ozzie, Harriet and Father Knows Best; a nation victorious now at rest. Leave it to Beaver and Eddie Haskell, following up from the Little Rascals.
Edward R Murrow and Cronkite; Huntley and Brinkley in black and white. Then Disney in a World of Color. . . three networks. . . this, that or the other. Nixon and Kennedy in debate, tempting the fickle fingers of Fate.
Kennedy shot down in Dallas, splatters blood on Camelot palace.
Johnson and Vietnam, draft and napalm. Nixon brought down in Watergate: dirty tricks soiled his Fate. American gold no longer for sale; Now the Fed tells the Tale. Double digit inflation brings Carter’s end; Reagan back in the saddle again. Morning in America theme, with hopes to rekindle the American Dream. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, while Americans flocked to the Mall. Bird in the hand worth two in the Bush, now with yankee Desert Storm push. But history charges like a Razorback: Bill and Hilary from American outback. Then Gingrich with balanced budget supposed, Contract with America proposed.
Along comes the dot.com bubble, foreshadowing digital trouble,
although we figured our digits out before that Y2K could spoil our rout.
But that 9/11 call was in the cards. World trade center downed in rubble and shards.
By ’n by, out of the World Trade Center smoke and rubble, investigations tracked al-qaeda as source of the trouble.
Some bin Laden fellow that 9/11 planner, he laid it out in the al qaeda manner. Terrorizing plot from an American-hater. More about that later.
Seven years went by . . .
Around the corner, Wall Street bulls hyped in frantic trading; prudence and good sense were fading, up up and up with no abating. But when the fevered market was spent, Dow-Jones was down by 53 percent.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, out of the tranche, years after 911 smoke and rubble, al-Qaeda was found as the source of trouble.
So Obama tracked down Osama. Seal Team Six did the fatal bin Laden fix. Operation Neptune Fear set our Seals’ team in gear; they put an end to our bin Laden fear.
Meanwhile back from the Jersey shore, donald stepped down from his escalator door. Somebody got shot on 5th Ave but nobody cared, cuz donald and his fox were now paired. After that came something like a sad bad dream, as MAGA shredded the American dream.
Last thing I remember, Doc, I slid into the curve;
and that’s when America started to swerve, I think. (blink)
At least that’s the way I remember it;
I just hope donnie don’t dismember it.
Selah. Make America Good Again, as we remember when. . .
Ozzie and Harriet and Leave it to Beaver.
Now America needs a Constitution retriever.
All this happened in one lifetime?
Time to hook up the American lifeline.
King of Soul
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Threshold of Hawaii
When the white deadwoods of Hawaii are lying on the shores, dead
and the tides, waves and currents of Pacifica propel oceans swells ahead. . .
Remember then, Americans, Hawaiians. . . Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea. . . peaks with slopes of fire, spewn to raise up island slopes.
As new lands will form with eruptions, volcanoes of Hawaii will spread this island upward and downward. . .
with volcanoes evermore. . . inspiring, without measure, the wondrous web of Paradise, distantly seen.
Walk hand in hand, and together we’ll stand . . . on these Islands with our dreams.
As I was walking on a beach of Hawaii, my poetic muse struck. Sudden inspiration fell into the poetic framework of a recitation heard long ago. . . while listening to the Moody Blues, specifically the voice of Mike Pinder as he recited Graeme Edge’s “The Dream”, which presented the poetic architecture for my poem about Hawaii.
King of Soul
Saturday, June 28, 2025
Beauty for Ashes
2000 years ago, Jesus Christ walked on earth. He taught us how to live well, abundantly and appropriately, in love and mercy. In one of his teaching sessions (later published in Matthew 25) Jesus said this:
“I was a stranger, and you took me in.”
In these times, that principle was actualized when Christians worked together to build a new home, in the aftermath of a very destructive fire, for a family in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii.
Back in the ancient times, when Jesus’ followers expressed confusion about his “you took me in”statement, Jesus replied: “Whatsoever you’ve done to the least of these, my brethren. . . (it’s as if) you’ve done it unto me.”
Today, June 29, I attended a celebratory event in which a newly-built home was being presented to its new owner, a lady named Carol whose home had been destroyed in the great Lahaina fire of 2023. Let me explain.
In the natural world, from time to time, disasters happen. The fire at Lahaina, Maui, in the Hawaiian archipelago, was a devastating event for that community. But in the wake of that disastrous fire, Christian organization Samaritan’s Purse stepped up to the task of constructing a new home for Carol. Local and distant volunteers labored together. In that constructive follow-up, Christian organizers and volunteers from near and far stepped in to rebuild Carol’s new home. Today, June 29, 2025, the house which was presented to her.
Thus did we celebrate, today, the dedication of Carol’s new home, as it was given to her and her children, with a scriptural explanation of the salvatory labor by which Jesus reconstructs broken homes and broken lives through the efforts of His people.
So Carol took possession of her home in the presence of Samaritan’s Purse staffers and Christian volunteers from near and far. Her new home was presented with an explantation that Jesus had established in his teachings, as in Matthew 25 and in the parable of the good Samaritan. . . through which the generosity and labor of Christian volunteers worked together to construct the house, two years after the Lahaina disaster.
Those volunteers were laboring on behalf of the new homeowner, but also to express the generosity of Christian volunteers from all over the world who had contributed to the effort, thus manifesting the power of Jesus’ legacy as actualized among his people when they set their minds and hands to the reconstruction of homes for disaster victims. But that’s not all. Broken lives, as well as burnt houses, can be reconstructed for proper use. You just gotta believe. For more information, consult with your local Christian friends and neighbors.
King of Soul
Friday, June 27, 2025
Down at the Crossroads
With the advent of AI, we find ourselves at a crossroads in time and history.
In the state of Mississippi, where I was raised as a child in the 1950’s, there was a tale told among the ole blues-singing soulsters of yesterday and days gone by, the devil—whoever, whatever that is—went down to the “crossroads” to make a deal with whoever showed up.
Be that as it may, whether it is neither here, nor there, or anywhere. . .
we se that the contest harmony and invention is being played out far beyond the scripted staffs of musical history, political history, art history or just plain ole human history, always presenting consequences more grave than the mere good sense and good works of the people who inhabit this planet,
Still to be found in the world today is the ongoing contest of order v. chaos.
Here’s the ever-present duel between right and wrong; there’s the Establishment beating back dissidents, fat cats banishing immigrants, the haves taking maximum control over them that ain’t got.
And we shan’t shan’t neglect to mention the plight of them who think they. should be running the show, being perpetually put down by that are in charge of it.
And here we learn we do have words that must be said; yet we have words that should never be spoken, but someone will pronounce those words sooner or later. Yes, we do encounter in this life lines in the sand that daren’t be crossed, and prohibitions that beg to be violated; we find rules that must be broken, and sometimes we encounter the terrible contests of convention vs. contention.
And then there is AI? What's up with that?
King of Soul
Monday, June 23, 2025
Many Many Jerky Persians
King Trumpednezzar was feasting in his oval lair with his maga minions when suddenly an elephant swaggered through his maga-feed, tweeting out cryptic memes of antidisestablishmentinterianistic drivel to violate his whitewashed walls, to wit:
Many, Many Nukey Persians
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Say what? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Suddenly, jingle jangle, now in what are we entangled?
Phone calls from MAGA stalls. . . more calls from RINO halls:
Persian nukers falling down, falling down!
Persian nukers going down, bye, bye, Shiites!
oh but!. . .
Gotta look good and be a winner,
oh great Trumpednezzar!
. . . meanwhile back at the oval
. . . squash the Persians; make them grovel!
. . . dithering in a coup-top flipflop;
. . . we’ll go make a fake news bomb hop!
we’ll make them Persians STOP
Stop them Persians from making nukes
Magas and elephants, just ignore the flukes.
Proud boys and three percenters, stand by!
We’ll blow them persian nukes sky high
Let’s blast armageddon
into MAGA heaven!
Smoke
Saturday, June 21, 2025
The Common Thread
After Jesus Christ had demonstrated, by his Resurrection, the power of Life over death, he ascended into the eternal realm, leaving behind his disciples and everyone else.
In the biblical account of events after his return to heaven, a description was given, in the book of Acts, of the life of his disciples as they were living, congregating and spreading the news of eternal life through Jesus Christ.
In the second chapter of Acts, a description of those early Christians’ lifestyle was given:
“And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.”
Thereafter, as the ages rolled by and years turned into centuries, kingdoms morphed into empires, empires generated wars. Human history is the sometimes-up and sometimes-down intersection of various human institutions, successes and failures, doctrines and debts, with some people coming out ahead in any given situation and others ending up with the short end of the stick.
In some applications of human will, effort, blood, sweat and tours, groups of people get conquered by other groups. There were slaves serving masters; workers serving bosses, poor serving rich and, as modernity crept into history, a so-called middle class, such as I am.
About 1800 years after Jesus’ ascension to heaven, another well-informed Jewish person came along with a notable theory pertaining to this notion of all things being held in common.
Karl Marx proposed that society should be reconstructed in a manner that would put the working people, which he called the proletariat, in charge of all the machinery of production and the management of society.
As Marx’s theory were later applied in various nations, most notably the Soviet Union during the 20th century, communism was demonstrated to be a way of doing things that did not actually fill the bill of what human peace and progress requires.
So the idea that all things ought to be held in common sort of fell into disrepute. Now it is seen as an unworkable basis upon which to build a society, or even, perhaps, a community.
As. for the original Christian practice of holding all things in common. . .it has withered and disappeared amongst the various stages of Church history. It seems that mankind, even the Russians and the Chinese, have given up on the sometimes great notion of communal living and communal property.
In American history, a trend toward commonality was initiated by Franklin Roosevelt . . .with his New Deal, designed to help us common folk get by during the Depression.
When the second World War erupted, everything got damaged, ditched, rearranged or reconfigured. In America, and the so-called “West” free market policies cranked up prosperity that was unprecedented in world history.
In recent years, there was a faction of the christian religion that broke ranks with those “liberals” who wanted to share the wealth, prosperity and productivity of free society. These secessionists wanted to make us great again by following the dictates of a self-obsessed president who understands nothing except how to make money, which was not the occupation of our original Messiah, or his most fervent followers.
All that to say. . . I pecked out these thoughts after reading, this morning, those words from the original guide to Christian living:
“And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common.”
Just sayin’.
Glass half-Full
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
All Along the Rough Ridge Trail
There must be some path out of Now
There must be some way to know How
I tell myself again.
traipsing now beyond the spin. . .
There’s too much diffusion
I’m feeling only this confusion
So I think I’ll take some time . . .
maybe traipse out along a rhyme
Now and then I walk this trail.
Rocks may come and feet may flail.
Here and there along the line
I’m waiting for some kind of sign
I can’t sort out what is happening
I find no relief in this lapping
the the joker he keeps exciting
as Dems and magas now keep fighting
There are many here among us
Who feel they must make Life a fuss
But America has seen the many and the few
and this is not the best that we can do
So let us not talk falsely now
Let us strive to find out how
our Faith degenerates to Fate
while donkeys do and foxes hate
each other. Stride along the trail
where you’ll discern some detail
Confusion has its cost.
We are won and we are lost.
All along our Watchtower
the WorldNet casts its spin
streaming in the web again, again
while the Eagle cries in sorrow
yesterday, today, tomorrow.
But what’s it to me; what’s it you?
Are our remaining days but few?
Up high along the trail
We catch a snippet of email
the Eagle cries in sorrow
What do we find tomorrow?
Two parties tweet and try
as foxes run and doves fly
Pundits maintain their scowl.
The wind begins to howl.
Good night and good luck.
Let us hope we don’t get stuck.
Glass half-Full
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