Rant

Although electrons now are streaming froth with disaster and woe-is-us video fortified with blustery putinous warnings of our empire’s downfall and their empire’s upchuck, and

meanwhile back at the middle kingdom ranch, techie-tok wizards collect data like robber barons used to collect cash back in the day, and

although bellicose bullying bee-ss is broadly flung forth through this-twitter and that faceblob as the big cheese strains to trump said putinous bluster and middlekingdom xi-nanigns, and  

although thousands, maybe millions, of our citizens assemble in the streets to demand justice and equality and employment and relief from covid and relief from centuries of oppression and mistreatment, and

although it is all very exciting to see on vid and hear about from the kids, new kids on the block, as we ole boomers just fade away even as the ole soldiers of greatest generation did all they could to stop them dam nazis and finally defeat the frickin fascists before  taking their exits from earthly existence, and

althought the dam nazis and the frickin fascists are once again comin out of the woodwork like mice when the house is dark,

I’m about ready to put a lid on it all and fuhgedaboudit, hence:

  Traveler's Rest

Glass half-Full

Shifting Sands Sublime

Beneath the appearance of things
behind the wonder that contemplation brings
there lies a universe of joy and pain
entrained upon whatever relics still remain
of a world colored by some eternal stain;
and wherever that stain remains
things are not and will never be the same
provoking some to surmise it’s just a game
that they can play and then refrain
from any effort to name
or explain.
And yet,
so many live for what they can get;
they allow no time to pause and let
life just happen along the way
so they can soon look back and say
what a joy it is to pause and stay
in the lingering light of a well-lived day
while the world just turns on come what may.
Oh, history breaks on sands far away
while here we enter into the fray;
we laugh or cry along the way
tomorrow and today,
I say, I say:
If I could comprehend this troubled world
so creative, yet destructively unfurled
I’d grasp the mystery, so sublime
that slaps between the sands of time
on this ever-shifting, long shoreline—

this consciousness of mine,
maybe it’s in or out of line
and maybe with a little sip of wine,
yes, I’d dream up some silly little rhyme,
and whether it be sublime and fine
or not worth a dime,
it nevertheless is mine,
and yet it can be thine
if you take the time.

King of Soul