Every sunset is a good bye

Every sunset is a good bye
the reason is not old age
the feeling is not despair
the sun sets into a golden orange
yellow spectacular particulate
matter daily denser breath taking
the irony of beauty that kills

Every full moon brings enlightenment
the very stars that once guided us
dazzle of constellations disappear
as we fill the air with filth poison
rivers bays oceans making the blue
red tide blood on our hands seeping
from hearts into a toilet of indifference

The shine of sun and moon turn shadow
in the fog that suffocates our existence

Life on Earth Hops

Life on Earth hops across the grass
it stops to dig with jitters
unable to ignore the feral cat
on the other side of the yard
its own tail swaying in its 
own pretense of disinterest 

Life on Earth carries on unaware
that Japan dumps radioactive waste
into the ocean an ocean already
full of plastic full of coral bones
the sea grows hot with the pressure
of an atmosphere of soot

Life on Earth goes its own way
it poops from branches into the air
it reproduces and busies itself with
nests and offspring unconcerned with
connections to all the other life forms
Until one species at a time it's gone

-Jameson, 7-7-17

The illusion of permanence

Tomorrow it will not happen
we who view the future through rose
or through a glass darkly gurus admonish
with the wisdom of living in the present
the future like the past does not exist
until it does

In a world of projected imagination
threatened by self annihilation
there are always flying super-humans
with solutions so it is difficult to envision
cataclysms that will destroy us
including the sages

Birds chirp among the frogs and cicadas
today is infinitesimally different
as the breeze carries no scent of death
though permanence proves the illusion 
molecules belie a manufactured macrocosm 
of inevitable doom

The First Immersion Changes Everything

Every river has its flow
whether a stream through a meadow
or a raging torrent rushing beneath cliffs
cascading into the depths of the Earth
even so each river changes perpetually
from the riverbank watching the eddies 
swirl we know that into this flow
we cannot wade twice cannot know
again the exact same water or feel
washing over us the same experience
not only because the river is changing
not only because we ourselves are changing
but also because the first immersion
changes everything

When we wade into the river twice
we carry with us that first wetness
we seek a repetition of the chill
the swimming upriver the thrill
of being at one with the stream flowing
ourselves not only in the present river
but in our memory of our first swim
there our first embrace of this water
the river is our own life preserving
an identity however illusory of life
of an enduring self of permanence
always moving downstream 
every embrace becomes a recollection
every kiss an accumulation

Dust or Stardust

Always been there
greed indifference materialism
a string of pearls a sip of champagne
a mansion
the contrast between the self-absorbed
and community in all its forms
the nurse the teacher the day laborer
between those who are out for number one
and those who are filled with compassion
for fellow beings human and animal
 sick or sad or alone
ours is a country born in greed
the quest for property for rare metals
to dazzle kings to increase their lands
ours is a country built on conquest
on lies  to native inhabitants
lies to tribes in touch with their lands
fellow beings whose lives we destroyed
a country built on slave labor  by
Africans torn from their land and each other
a country whose greed demanded
independence but gave us leaders who
for all their wisdom perpetuated greed
materialism and the accumulation
of wealth of property no matter the
suffering of millions

What is there in our nation that makes us
think that we are a good people
religion has been the damnation of all
who have not conformed to the rules
by the rich powerful who believe in
the divine right of kings now we call
the one percent who ignore with disdain
the words of the holy men they profess
to love and obey
falsehood eats the heart of our nation
art of every kind has failed to enlighten
either echoing the lies of religion
or presenting a beauty and compassion
looked at as mere luxury an irony lost
on materialists
Our literature has given us a truth few
comprehend our disharmony with nature
our violence and warlike hatred our
bigotry our shortsightedness our stupidity
truth from Melville Twain Whitman
voices so intimate to us who read that we
weep for the deafness in our neighbors' minds

The dialog goes on between the followers
of  Rousseau and those of  Hobbes
does being human mean having compassion
harmony with nature having the capacity
for civilization or does being human mean
wanting dominance of others war cruelty
wanting an empire rather than culture
are we mind that is capable of the ideals
of love beauty and vision or are we
 matter doomed to self destruction
doomed like an imploding star to oblivion

Sweet Taste of Lamb

Sweet Taste of Lamb

Little lamb who made thee
Grandmother Minnie made me
a lamb cake baked with real
coconut one of her recipes
praised in the food section
of the Washington Post
her cake my favorite specialty
handed on a silver plate to me
on my sweet thirteenth birthday
someone snapped a photograph
and there we are Minnie
Jack and coconut lamb
for all eternity.

Dedicated to the memory of

Minnie R. Noble

Jameson

Since the Wood Slat Fell Slap

Since the wood slat fell slap
against the Italian tile kitchen floor
startling us both my tinnitus
has hissed its buzz ring rap
on the flow of nocturnes of Faure
Quietude has been overcome
by noise by cacophony by crap
as if a thousand bats are flapping
toward some demon events
where music makes no sense
where bleeding bloated blimpomats
Moloch among them portend
a burning world of mayhem where
the poison of extinct reptiles
gushes forth in never-ending revenge