Drone

Death from above
A cruel dry land,
In the form of a
Missile guided
By a young hand,
On a distant joystick,
Leaves a bloody
Splotch in the sand.

We R 3

Here we are my friend
A trifid from a distant place
Near the galaxy's end,
Yes, that would be outer space,
Which you no longer need
To guess about or theorize,
Because we're standing right
Here before your eyes,
A gangly tottering trinity
From someplace beyond infinity,
Bringing a message, if you will
Listen for a minute before
Calling the cops, just chill
And hear what we have to say
About your planet, which
Is about to go the way of
Slow toasting, we've been landing
And warning, but to no avail,
It seems you Earthlings are too
Busy, too saturated, doomed to fail...
But WE R 3, and will persist,
Returning on the comet's tail,
To help, to urge, as long as you exist.

Me Staring, And It Staring Back...

What already is,
Exists despite its lack
Of creation, as content.
- - - - - - - - - -
Pay at the counter,
Bills in the mail,
And it's sadly funny,
That now,
My computer wants money.
- - - - - - - - - -
Dumb person + Smart phone
= Some sort of equlibrium
At about $200 per month

Yakushima

On the paradise island of Yakushima
Where rain, mist, and green, last all year,
Animals do things both magical and queer,
Enough food for all, no need to fight, and
The monkey rides on the back of the deer...

Life As Meatloaf

Without the brown gravy, the
Meat dish is sensible, but bland,
Like a cake without the frosting,
Some things should not be banned,
By Diet-Nazi's shaming and accosting
Those who would eat, infatuated
With taste, even if the fat is saturated.

Dusk, At Home

Lying in that delicious
Warm and safe twilight zone
Between wake and sleep,
Life's best moment: prone
With no promises to keep...

Jehovah's? Witness

The doorbell rings, and it's this young
Sounding girl's voice coming through
The security system speaker, asking
If I read the Bible, and also if I knew
Jesus, and would I be willing talk
About how to achieve eternal life,
"Eternity?, something like a long walk
With endless moments of pain or pleasure?"
I think as I pause, the girl still downstairs
Outside the door, promising a treasure
If only I open the door and listen and believe,
Then tithe time and money in equal measure
In hopes of her heaven to achieve...
The return on investment to quench a thirst
In the desert-pit of my soul, which lingers
Empty and dry -- "now that would be a first"
I think, as I ask the visitor to come on in,
But no answer, she's gone, I'm left in sin.

A Good Saturday, Not Taken For Granted

Protected from the weather chaos outside
Where cold and wet have joined to cause
Temporary misery, it's nice to be able hide,
And appreciate the peace, as the minutes flow
By warmly, in my electrically-powered
Cube-space of shelter, where the slow
Progress of another day, free of workday
Hassles, proceeds without stress, although
It all hangs on a thin lucky string,
That's why this feeling is such a wonderful thing.

Aboriginal Wisdom

The Jomon people of ancient Japan
Ate nuts and shellfish and did not farm,
They made pottery and fire danced,
Living within nature, causing little harm,
Until those would would make rice,
Came over uninvited, and weren't so nice...
Jomon dreams receded into forest and hill,
But the beauty of their way, lingers still...

Cold Wet A.M.

Big morning battle against sleep
Welcome reinforcements arrive
In second cup of coffee
- - - - - - - - - -
The sound of cold wind and rain
Is better heard, I know,
From inside a warm room;
Also goes for looking at snow...
- - - - - - - - - -
Good friend, sadly passed away,
In Facebook and Blog, lives on yet
Even unto this day,
A spirit in the Internet...
- - - - - - - - - -
The Japanese name
For Friday is way
More appropriate...
"Kin-Yo-Bi": Gold Day!
- - - - - - - - - -
Waiting for an idea to arrive
Like it's a UFO,
And my head is Area-51
Then it appears and lands...
From where did it come?
- - - - - - - - - -
Here it has come again!
A familiar, vexing acquaintance,
My first cold of the season...
- - - - - - - - - -
Japan has an Emperor
The tribe's symbolic head,
America has laws and ideals
And businessmen instead.
- - - - - - - - - -
If I had my druthers
Dishwashing and hard thinking
Would always be done by others...

Hookah Lounge Azul

Payday night, in a bar
In the drinking town,
Located not too far
From where the young
Thirsty ones, clutching bills
Dispensed from the ATM,
Pay for dynamic refills
Of happy-juice, again and again...
And the barkeeps can barely
Keep-up with the pace,
As the ice and glasses fly-off
Into the manic joy of the place,
Where determined drinking
Aims to obscure and obliterate,
The burden-boredom of thinking...

Do The Hustle!

Walking the dog, and watering the plants,
Paying the bills, and pressing one's pants,
Trudging to work without even a glance
At the miracle steps of life's dance,
Performed by clouds and flowers and ants
All around, and inside, if given the chance...

Before The Impact...

Senyu, Haiku, Short Ones -- Morning, 14 Jan 2012

Craggy morning
Brain stuck in mist...
Coffee is the sun!
- - - - - - - - - -
Occasi0nally, rarely, life makes
An unusually generous offer:
NFL play-offs + 3-day weekend
- - - - - - - - - -
Enthusiastic drinking
Sometimes can be
Better than thinking
- - - - - - - - - -
That lonely expectant feeling
In blue-glow of the screen
Waiting for FaceBook log-on...
- - - - - - - - - -
I wonder if inspiration
Travels through space at
The speed of light...
- - - - - - - - - -
Strange that I can
Remember the idea
But can't recall the word...
- - - - - - - - - -
Every artist needs a muse,
But money is also
Something he must use,
Lest through want
Inspiration he lose...
- - - - - - - - - -
Considering my beloved,
It's like the hands of my heart
Are warmed over a fire
- - - - - - - - - -
A cat is a killer,
A dog is a friend,
But it's the dog that bites...
- - - - - - - - - -
Minute, challenging task finished,
Satisfied feeling of accomplishment,
Reach for the apsirin...

Life Goes Better Accompanied By Music

Far away from where the music was played,
I'm on an ancient island nature made
Dependent on the resources and good
Will of others, its people filled with an
Instinctive fear, that what could happen
Is that something beyond control will
Connive to override the harmony -- yet
My ear-buds are snug and somehow still
Transmit melodic feelings of peace
And comfort, which allow me to eat,
Dream, ignore -- he will play and repeat
Blues-inspiration until the day things cease
Suddenly, to function, and the dissonant
Violent chords and notes outside increase,
Drowning out my music, my hope,
Inexorably, to the end of my rope.

From A Re-reading Of "Moby Dick"

-- Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

-- There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.

-- There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.

-- There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities; fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of what you shall have for dinner - for all your meals for three years and more are snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable.

(By Herman Melville)

Somewhere In Istanbul

Tiny men standing,
Dressed up, in-line,
In front of the headless...
Their suits look fine,
But the beards are kooky,
And the ranks of guillotine
Victims are spooky-
Cool, each bloodless clean,
Backing up the tiny men
In suits, hoping to bring
The curious back again,
If not today, then maybe when...

(Photo by R.B. Curtis, Esq., wanderer in Turkey)

Chasing The Chasers

The whalers from Japan
Are not hunting for the white
Moby Dick, across the
Sothern seas, out of sight
Of land where the others,
Determined to push and fight,
To stop, what in their eyes,
Is neither needed nor right,
Will hunt the hunters
Across the antarctic night...
And the others act and organize
Ships to follow and pursue
The pursuers, they go down
To the ocean, sail over and through
The merciless weather and wave,
Sailing under a dying moon,
To see what they can stop, or save
From a Japanese cannon-fired harpoon.

Unimaginable Moment

Under a cold bird-less
Sky, the color of stone,
She stands dumbstruck,
Paralyzed, and alone,
Gazing at the rubble
That used to be her home.

Too Busy To Learn

Supposedly inspired is the jerk,
Too conniving and competitive,
And burning his bridges at work,
He'd be better off with a sedative.

Rest In Peace Steve Jobs

-- You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

-- Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

-- My favorite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time

-- Japan's very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don't think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that's already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor.

-- For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Chicken As Sysiphus

To get to the other side,
The road, I have crossed,
And now that I am safely here,
I find I am totally lost
As to what to do for an encore,
So I guess I will return
Across to where I was before...
Yes you heard it right,
The plan was not misspoke,
It's my perpetual existence
In a well-worn joke...

(Art by Mark Niemeyer)

Symbiosis

The lilies, blue,
Nectar-laden, pass on
Their DNA through
Pollen dusted on
Winged sugar thieves,
One arriving
As another leaves,
Buzzing and diving
Under a summer sky,
On a honey high,
What better place for a bee
To be...

(Art by Mark Niemeyer)

Veteran

How do you measure the distance
Between me and the hole in the dirt
I had to dig to stay alive at night
In Aghanistan, in order to return unhurt
To "the world" not even changed a bit,
With people scurrying for fun and money,
Too distracted and busy to give a shit
About me or my foxhole... It's funny
In a way because those people are who
I am fighting for, or so I've been told
By those above me, lest I misconstrue
The reasons for our bloodshed and bold
Actions in the face of death, yet it's
The distance, the mental chasm which
Lies between the war and the mall, that
I cannot ever jump across -- life's a bitch.

Reality With Bovines

Two cows in the field at the bottom of the hill
Don't know it's a Sunday or the new year;
Just chewing cud and eating their fill,
Humans do the same by drinking beer...

(Art by Mark Niemeyer)