We throw back time like we own it, like
we are masters of our world.
But we are just stewards of this point,
this place we call home and think it ours.

For are we not breathing the air breathed before?
Is not the light of stars been seen a billion years
before and does it not carry with it all those who came
before their memories and dreams and more?

We think thoughts, like it cannot last much longer
when we experience today’s conflict and pain,
and yet it does, and will be some memory of
the past, as it is repeated again and again.

Everything changes and everything remains the same.
For there is no original thought, no original greed
there is no original sin that didn’t come from within
our history and our millions of years of making our way.

And yet, there is also the love of couples and families
and children raised with hope they will have better
than we, and the hope and prayer that we’ll see some
more of all that is good, all that we are capable of.

Yes, such a conundrum, for we are both good and bad,
destructive and constructive, and somehow we survive,
somehow we populate all corners of this pinpoint space
of existence, and explore beyond, as we’ve learned to thrive.

But we do not own time … it owns us.

I think government of the people and for the people is coming back. I think that more of us than not are tired of the billionaires and trillionaires believing they can buy our votes with their money, and have politicians in their pocket.

I think more of us than not believe it is deeply wrong that our President and his family and friends are getting rich by selling access to power, selling pardons and trading geo-political policy for business interests.

I think more of us than not are disgusted with the efforts to change who we are, a nation built by immigrants dedicated to the advancement and prosperity of our children.  We will not be whitewashed in order to serve the power interests of exclusionist.

I think more of us than not are exhausted with the hijacking of religion by the crude, immoral and power hungry, who are confused by the lessons of the Good Samaritan and the admonishment to do to the least of us as we would to Christ.

I think more of us than not are ready to reclaim our democracy from the would be autocrats and oligarchs and their minions of incompetence… and we will show them how great our number is in a couple of weeks.

This guy walked into a hopping disco bar
crowded with a sea of youth wide and far
and saw a movie star with long golden hair
and eyes so blue he couldn’t help but stare.

But did she notice him?  Certainly not.
for their were many others much more hot
with long hair and bell bottom blue jeans
as it always was, at these nightclub scenes.

With false swagger he arrived just a little too late
as she left with another, and thus he assumed his fate
would be to be denied this one so beautiful and fair,
and wondered if he should try again, should he dare?

With courage and drink he did try again
and to his surprise she said yes, with a grin,
and on a crowded dance floor the romance did begin
and we’re still celebrating such a chance, such a win.

That two should meet and build a life
together as husband and wife.
A family born from the happenstance
of beauty at a disco dance.

And fifty years hence she is still the fairest of all
no matter the restaurant, bar or dance hall.
And he is just a boy who cannot help but stare
at the girl with blue eyes and golden hair.

If we permit ourselves
only an artificial world
and never really see the
trees or the horizon.

How would we know nature,
how will we appreciate
the skyline, and the forest
hiding among the trees?

What is a sunrise or a
sunset if only witnessed
in the posted pics  of others
and the colors of imagination?

How are we part of nature
if we eschew the wisdom it
screams at us every day
on the evening news?

Did we forget about
the warming of the earth
for the sake of profits
and lower taxes?

Wonder what will kill us first
the intelligence we created
or the wisdom of nature
we ignored?

Searching the past,
trying to understand
something beyond what
the history books tell.

The pictures of youth
with energy and vitality
and their words, not so
different than our own.

These people in faded
graying images, who
are still somehow alive
in stories and legend.

Will someday, our digital
images lost in space
be found and will anyone
learn our stories and legend?

Photo, from 1944, Sergeant and fighter pilot, Michael Vargo and his Nephew Michael Varga (Mickie)

The bribe smells of desperation
It stinks like soured milk, which can
keep you alive, as it makes you sick.

The ideas, like the milk are sour,
there are not enough ‘others’
to torture to satisfy an impoverished base.

The self-aggrandizement has
flown too close to the sun,
where even gold melts.

We’ve run out of missiles for
which to wag the dog, and
losing alone is painful.

Our neighbors don’t even hate us,
rather they pity us
for our wretchedness.

But the bribe… now that we
can do, for corruption is all
that is left… no matter how it stinks.

So drink up America, for this
is what the Gold King calls Great!

Can we keep calm,
staying on the centerline,
avoiding the borderline?

Can we keep calm,
maintain an even keel
and to no king kneel?

Can we keep calm,
manage anger and pain
and keep from going insane?

Can we keep calm,
and level our head
rather than losing it instead?

Can we keep calm,
and stay the difficult track
and to reason and ethics get back?

Can we keep calm,
and trust our democracy
and one another as our legacy?

I thing we can!

What we believe to be normal
is a mythology we arrived
to through a million, million
choices through the ages.

Imagined by many someones.
Intentional or not, they effect an
agenda inscribed
on the scrolls of life.

There maybe such a thing
as human nature, but
there is no normal human
experience.

We are left to our
own devices and our
own interpretations of
this thing we are told is normal.

Some truths are inviolable.
All who are born will die.
All who love will hurt,
All who exist need others.

For all else we get to
choose, how we think,
how we pray, how we
love and how we live.

Choose wisely.

Something so simple,
something so singularly connected to life,
something, as necessary, as the air we breathe.

How has it become so complicated?

How much to drink a day? Eight or more,
but never enough, from what I keep being told.

How it should be filtered?  So we convince
ourselves there is nothing but water in water.

Can you rinse water?

What portable container we should carry?  For
wherever we go, we cannot trust un-bonded sources.

Bottled, sparkling or tap at a restaurant,
ice, no ice, maybe a lemon?

Is it on the south pole of the moon
so we can somehow live in such a forbidden place?

Will there be enough when rivers run
dry, but melting glaciers flood coastal towns?

There is too much, and not enough at
the same time or so it seems.

Part of the recipe for coffee or tea, for without
which, how could we meet to discuss important matters?

Ah, but for me, I prefer to contemplate just a bit of water
in a tumbler of single-malted scotch and little else!