Just back from a business trip late in the evening… successful, its like when you may be tired, but you just hit the winning home run!
Restlessness
Restlessness prevails as time slows
Fear of life and living passing woes
Energy and thought direction fails
Activity without accomplishment sails
Where is my soul and muse today
Inspiration and direction in wild array
Like the boat tossed about in stormy sea
Maybe this writing really isn’t my cup of tea
Ideas and passions surpass my norm
Thoughts and directions refuse to form
Do something, anything to make right
Maybe sunrise will end this dreadful night
Age and time are prevailing enemies now
Daring the waves I’m standing on the bow
No compass, direction, no port to find
Overcome time, ride the waves of my mind
Sunrise brings end to dreary night
Maybe soon I’ll find port with aid of light
Value What We Have
Less than 50% of us vote, nearly 100% of us complain
History and civics are boring, we’d rather be entertained
A civilization built by ancestors fleeing famine, war, religious persecution and terror
They were not inconvenienced by 9 hr. plane ride, but by 30 days in a ship, where they vomited every day
They built our society with laws, labor and ingenuity to be better than all the rest
They fought and died to keep it alive and growing for all of us
They fought and died to keep their ancestral countries from genocide and doom
Because they knew it was right thing to do…
and when our country and civilization was broken they found a way to fix it too
We must value what we have, take care of it and build on it
If we don’t value what we have, we are doomed to have it taken away
Mike
Adventures Sail
Waves beat relentless upon the shore
Like a soft knock on adventures door
Beckoning us to set sail out to sea
To places unknown for you and me
Leave the hustle of world behind
Look to the sea to really unwind
The wind, the waves, the salt air
Challenge the weather bad or fair
The wind and wire and sail singing
The feel of the tiller shudder and ringing
The tilt, the spray, the waves bounce
Going nowhere, and everywhere all at once
Controlling chaos, the wind obeys my will
Onward to adventure, until I get my fill
Then the alarm wakes me and I know
Just a dream I see, and back to work I go
Mike
Time Change Imagined
Such an idea, daylight savings time
As if to control worlds rhythm and rhyme
Mother Earth cares not of our silly notions
Of time forward or back, matters not in her motions
At break of dawn, birds stir and sing
Not a care about when alarm will ring
Time is one of our human obsessions
To schedule trains, planes, school, work and social sessions
En masse we spring forward, an imagined hour lost
And in fall we’ll get that hour back, and its imagined cost
All we do and all we are in time is imagined!
Mike
Another Night on the Road
Good night sleep 100 feet above the ground
7th floor for another night on road I’m found
Morning sun peeks in windows not shaded I see
I’m liking the gentle way the light wakes me
I hear the highway with thousands of chariots
… carrying working warriors to the fight
I hear the din of nearby rail yard and workers
….working trains that passed by screaming in the night
I think of my day and so many like this before
I think of the next and next and so much more
Join the rush just get out of bed
Shower and coffee will clear my head
No Chance
Its quiet I’ve just heard
Its a vision I never saw
Of a future that has occurred
I know a past that has not arisen
And its life that’ll never be lived
A perfect soul totally misgiven
My chance, my shot not taken
Lived life without a breath
All because I was miss-taken
I recently heard some experts talking about why China’s economic woes shouldn’t matter as it relates to performance of the US economy. The argument made was that China is a very small portion of our GDP from an export standpoint, so a weakened China economy has a very small effect on profitability of US corporations and hence the US stock market. Secondarily the Chinese debt problem is an internal debt issue. The US has very little exposure in this regard. So in their opinion the US market’s response to China economic woes is outsized relative to the true influence on US economy. US corporate performance is good, and employment is up, so the stock market impact due to China is overstated. However as I listened, I felt that they missed the largest strategic threat that China poses. If their authoritarian regime is threatened internally due to economic recession then I worry about a regime that may act out on nationalistic adventures to move the populations attention away from their failing economy. They are already showing an aggressive hand in the South Pacific, also called the South China Sea, claiming islands, shipping and fishing waters that are in international waters. I worry and anticipate Chinese aggressive behavior toward Taiwan, toward Japan, and other Asian nations and consequently to the US. Additionally acts of omission are of concern, maybe they don’t reign in North Korea as they otherwise might. We must worry about the Chinese government responding to economic issues with nationalistic adventures. US Stocks may suffer more broadly in the coming weeks from the uncertainties around international threats in the Asia as well as those in the Middle East because of the effect that authoritarian nationalistic (or in case of Middle East – Sectarian) adventures might have on the global economy.
Mike
Yesterday we watched a play called Ragtime, its good, not great, but it was interesting in that its placed in our history about a hundred years ago, at a time when racial and class prejudices and injustices were prevalent. In reality it is unfortunately too relevant at our current time. Its amazing how so much has changed and yet so little has changed in social thought. Are we doomed to be wrapped in the prejudices and injustices of the past in the next hundred years, or will our children, and grandchildren as our legacy find a way toward wisdom, truth and love?
Of Wisdom, Truth and Love
Born to this world with all hope and possibility
Nurtured and developed with love of family
Dependent on all and we grow in passion
Passion for all we need and want and smiles shared
Giving way in time to hope and desire of what’s to be
We determine our way, our path in life and love
Or rather is our path set before us with options here and there
Are the directions and decisions determined by our wisdom
Or are they choices driven by the collective push of society
Does humanity develop a collective wisdom aged and advanced generationally
What be that social fabric that conveys that wisdom – religion, science, art, literature
That fabric wears and tears and requires repair and renewal in time
We connect our inner being and soul to this fabric, this wisdom
It’s easier to find comfort in this all knowing wisdom without reason
When we wander though and test the fabric do we advance or damage
I rather believe that wonderment and open hearts make for wise souls
Worn and torn fabric is obligated our attention and repair
But it is easy to be content with histrionic protections of failed fabric
Learning is a wonderful way to pursue the corners of wisdom for value
Yet to learn along the paths set before us throughout the fabric of humanity
Or better yet to advance learning beyond the fabric and into creation
Our children, our future generations will be opened to a greater wisdom
Our understanding of social fabrics that carry ideas, thoughts and passion
We play a role that is beyond our horizon of sight, beyond our life and love
Our logic and reasons cannot reconcile with the areas of the social fabric at times
Thus pushing us as far as hate of such dullards of humanity that embrace this fabric
We forget that this same fabric is part of our weave too and for many their only comfort
In our mind, logic screams this must change!
We desire to improve and repair as we can in our corner of mankind
Yet the others hold to that blanket with a maniacal unreasoned grip
The truths they hold in their unreasoned grip seem absolute to the believer
The investigator sees these truths to be relative to the perspective of observer
Seeking to uncover that core value and wisdom that drove need for absolutism
These truths then create a prison of absolutism that restricts freedom
Choking life, love and thought from adherents of mismanaged fabric
Yet giving false power and judgmental superiority to the advocators and enforcers
Shall we embrace these challenges to logic as they are encountered
Shall we tolerate what is comfort to others, allow to live and let live
Doesn’t reason drive us to compassionate learning and tolerance of their comfort
We have a responsibility to learn, teach and nurture compassionately
To advance the fabric or to leave it unmolested requires application of wisdom
To act without thought and to base on prejudice is an act against wisdom and love
Freeing our minds and hearts allows passions of imagination beyond constraints
The social fabric of our reasoned soul cannot constrain our imagination
Love like a dove soars easily above the fabric of convention and tradition
As a dove released from the weighted constraints of local monochromatic fabric
We soar above the quilted plane and see the many colors and textures of life
This gift of living perspective allows us to grow in wisdom, love and truth
With wisdom we build a legacy of smiles by bring new worlds to those we influence
We can expand thought and help each other see beauty with perspective
We can point out beauty, point to the moon and sunrise and say appreciate it my friend
With truth we know nothing is more beautiful than Gods gift of this world
We enjoy our star, our support system, and all those that came before
Continually building our society, our language, the arts, and science
With love we know we are entertained and have more time than any before us
We share an obligation to contemplate and investigate our fabric and our legacy
How we share, how we love determines what “legacy” we leave this world