Poems

Gale Force

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Gale Force

Gale force winds make such noise
As air rushing out of the balloon
Of the Southern Gulf of Mexico
Rushing to catch up with a storm
That will plow across Eastern states
Adding fuel to energize, to create havoc
Like a little boy with no impulse control
Let loose in a room of fragile china
And figurines, with thoughts of mischief
We listen as we hear him go by
Knowing he’ll be trouble for someone
And all we can do is hope and pray
That he just runs between the aisles
Making a lot of noise

Poems

Music is in us…

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I read an article that reported that chimpanzees, our closest primate-relative will sway and dance when they hear music. Some birds, sea-lions and dogs can be trained to move with music… however chimpanzees move with music spontaneously, and have been observed in the wild rhythmically using sticks to create a beat and moving with a beat. It is theorized that music is something ingrained in our most ancient consciousness.

Music is in us

Ancient rhythms are in part of us
A feeling of connection among us
As mother child lullaby becalms us
And God’s first communication with us
Learning to express feeling between us
To call each other, and know it’s us
Then to move and dance, inspiring us
Forever, our world is better
…. Because the music is always in us

Poems

As we watch…

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Dissembling

Cranes are remarkable constructions
Capable of rising to great heights
Or wreaking massive destructions

Assembling arguments to new heights
Democracy, purpose, constitution
Or devolve into win-lose power fights

It’s only a matter of what you will believe
As the words spill out like debris
Of wreaking ball lies that confuse and deceive

It’s our choice to endure dissembling
Or push for construction, constitution
And democracy’s future assembling

Poems

Trees … and Phone-Trees

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I’ve been a little too serious lately… so hopefully this is more fun!

One of my favorite poems was published in 1914 by Joyce Kilmer:

Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

My comedic version:

Phone-Trees
I think that I should never hear
A poem lovely as, operator here.

A phone-tree hungry time consume
Against our lives it doeth presume;

A phone-tree that takes us all day
To find the right end we will pray;

The phone-tree may impatient wear
On thee, and cause radical loss of hair;

Upon our bosom a telephone is lain
As we wait on hold for something lame.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only Insurance companies
….. can make a damn phone-tree.

Blog

Thomas Mann… on democracy

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A work called “The Coming Victory for Democracy” by Thomas Mann was written in 1938.  I’ve found it fascinating.  Some excerpts that seemed very applicable to our times and our challenges are captured here.  Mann’s premise at the time was that for democracy to win over the coming conflict with fascism, it would require democratic peoples to understand, know and properly reflect on the higher values of democratic principles.  I believe we need to re-examine our commitment to democracy and remember always that its future survival is not guaranteed.

Thomas Mann… (parenthetical material is my editorial comment)

Democracy is friendly to intellectual thought, to arts, to literature (and free press).  Distinguishing itself from dictatorship, which because of its belief in force is thereby obliged to be remote, foreign, and hostile to intellectual pursuits. But this assertion only acquires real value as a definition of democracy if the concept of intellectual life is not understood as one-sided, isolated, abstract, superior to life and remote from it, but is characterized as closely related to life, as directed toward life and action — for only that and specifically that is the democratic spirit.  That is the spirit of democracy. “Democracy is not intellectual in an old and outworn sense. Democracy is thought; but it is thought related to life and action.

… In a democracy which does not respect the intellectual life and is not guided by it, demagogy has free play, and the level of national life is depressed to that of the ignorant and uncultivated.  But this cannot happen if the principle of education is allowed to dominate and the tendencies prevail to raise the lower classes (here, in our times we’d refer to the social-economic challenged)  to an appreciation of culture and to accept the leadership of the better elements.

… They consider fascism a protective bulwark which will save them from the real, the Russian, proletarian bolshevism and from socialism in general (today, we need to avoid thinking of authoritarianism as a false choice against progressive policies)

… Now, as life is constituted, truth depends to some extent on the man who speaks it.  From certain sources even the truth becomes a lie.  There is no doubt, among the variations and the emotionally intelligible modifications of the idea — truth, freedom, justice– it is what we call justice that is closest to the conscience and the heart of humanity today.

https://ia601601.us.archive.org/4/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.221831/2015.221831.The-Coming.pdf

 

Blog

Embrace Gray

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I’ve been thinking about the complexity of the world, about business issues I’ve been involved in, about relationships, and about how we experience all of it. Increasingly this is good, that is bad, or more imminently it seems, it is THEY are good and THEY are bad. In business I see decisions being made based on limited analysis. In politics I see decisions made based on abstract ideas with no grounding in life’s realities. Thomas Mann in his encouragement to the defense of democracy, warned against “pure abstraction”, and “the complete isolation of the mind from life itself” … because it allows us to see the world as black and white, right and wrong, and ignore the complexity of life. He also worried about our susceptibility to “the charm of novelty” … Grabbing on to the latest new idea without understanding the implications, and most importantly the unintended consequences. New is not bad, nor is it good, new is just new, something to be understood, and folded into the complexity of the real world.
Some are even proud of seeing the world in stark terms; black/white, good/bad, with-me/ against-me. As if ignoring the complexities of business, politics, of life is something meritorious. I believe that exploring complexity allows us to see in those gray areas as opportunity. Goodness hiding in the margin of sunrise, and sunset, when the colors shine, it is not day or night, it’s that gray-time in between. We are not wholly good or bad, but we are all gray. Business or politics is not win or lose, its compromise for a purpose. Computers can see through the RGB model 256 shades of gray… why can’t we see some ourselves? Complexity exists, and must be seen and embraced in order to be mastered. Education, and principled hope leads to wisdom and understanding, and advancement.
I think mothers know this better than fathers. They know that nurturing is always a case of operating in the gray zone. Finding the potential in a malcontent, in someone that is resisting learning, resisting change, when they are changing the most. Those that claim the high ground of right and wrong and black and white, are only doing so to bludgeon to death the gray and its inherent beauty in their own lives. Embrace complexity, embrace conflicting information, evaluate and then decide and promote, and grow, and learn even more. Then when you understand, it is possible to communicate a position clearly.

The Thomas Mann quotes were from an article by Nadia Schadlow in the WSJ, titled Thomas Mann’s Message for America in the Digital Age.

Thomas Mann won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929.
A quote attributed to him: War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

Poems

Soreness

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Soreness

I woke this morning with numbness in my fingers
That came from my shoulder’s arthritic stingers
It is by the stretch of something that shouldn’t
Stretch beyond what I thought I couldn’t
And so, I’m proud of this, this precious sore
For it is work to strengthen to the core
This body that I let go to waste and age
When it need not be the end nor last page
That was written when I had the busy excuse
And I told myself, my mind was only thing of use

Poems

January’s Soul

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We are changing the climate, we lack empathy for our world, our future, each other, we are sure to make our mother’s weep and our Mother Earth’s tears will either bring us back or not…

For January’s Soul

Yesterday a moist breeze of summer
Interrupted winter’s hold as an affront
To coolness, to dry, to what we expect
Of January’s soul
And although we lean from the sun
It warms us still
As if a mother’s love is endless
And no matter how
We stray we are brought back
To summer by the warm
Moist breeze of tears
For the cold of January’s soul

My Stories, Poetry, Thoughts of the day