Channeling my inner changeling

When young I truly had no inkling
that I was but incipient
My alarm bell was never tinkling
while acted out my idiot

Traits that might disenchant
were so far constrained
My inner sycophant
kept grinning harebrained

Pathetic but hadn’t been in a rush
to question much my attitude
Middle age laid bare with horrid blush
my erstwhile lack of rectitude

Seems still that part of my essence
might consist of channeling
in blabbering omnipresence
my hapless inner changeling

It ain’t what I would like to see
or not who I prefer to be
although afraid it’s somehow me
from whom I’m unable to flee

LAidback no longer

Expect a sunburnt smile
with white teeth gleaming
in any market isle
in trendy streaming

Spouting catchy metaphors
in tilting lilting idiom
Driving cool wheeled dinosaurs
in bumper to bumper ‘freedom’

Headed for the erstwhile Golden West
on to land abundantly blessed
in irresistibly upbeat quest
Too late, turned crowded, worn out, stressed

In unrelenting motion
have been pumping most of its oil
polluting air & ocean
depleted the bountiful soil

Time to wake up from faded dreams:
It’s getting ever hotter
fires blaze on hills & in ravines
rivers, lakes drained of water

We’re culprits of reckless squander
stared down by unblinking drought
Wake up from fantasy’s wonder:
Face it. No way, none but out

Days gone when LAid back seemed easy
brimming with optimism breezy

+)
LAid back = laid back as in LA

edited 10/14/23 1345

Morning routine

Radiating heater glowing
nearly grilling Joyce’s butt
Internet fun & jolts flowing
lifts her out of morning rut

She’s cozying up in her ‘cave’
Reads emails of rants & raves
Her clients’ situations grave
and she be the one who saves

But not for long in tether
so to stay strong & trim
she’s braving ‘Arctic’ weather
heading soon for the gym

Jolting those numb nerve endings

Beguiled the restive mill malltitudes
unbeknownst fumbling for meaning
chasing acquisitive magnitudes
harshly gleaning, overweening

Fleetingly on cloud nine
their eyes glowering
mining for gold online
those crisp screens scouring

Soon enough fizzles their proclivity
into poor paralyzed passivity

+)
malltitudes = (by license) the thronging multitudes at malls

Awe for the mundane returned

Sent to my son Matt on his emergence after a 10 day silent retreat in California’s High Desert:

 

Deep dark rueful shadows
lit in hued moon light
edge silvery meadows
of metallic bright

Shine unperturbed bright stars
beyond Earth’s cold skies
Way beyond Moon and Mars
hide unanswered ‘whys’

In morning’s early light
shadows turn shallow, skies warmed
Forthwith, wake up, hold tight!
Awe for the Earthly returned:

Fades away night’s perfect stillness
elbowed by day’s messy shrillness

‘Game’ over

Watching from box suite
humanity’s last game:
In utter defeat
strangely absent all shame

Watch how during the Sixth Mass Extinction
we wreak disaster without distinction!

Whether granted one more decade
or just one more faint heartbeat
as long as own demise is stayed
we’ll sit on cushy box seat

Til fade our horrid shrieking jeers
drowned in dying oceans of tears

 

Fresh from ‘successes’ elsewhere, up next: China!

Beltway stuck lascivious
in politics insidious
Flimsy pretexts devious
brings on aggression hideous

Elated by advanced hardware
men in power act like boys
Those ‘warriors of the armchair’
want power, ribbons & toys

Safely back home they adore war
martially heroic lore
Ordering troops to roar & gore
to settle a phantom score:

Merciless U.S. guns
destroyed poor Iraq
Couldn’t even sweep the crumbs
left from this ‘cake walk’

While the U.S. been unable to defeat
‘medieval’ Taliban, al-Qaeda bands
North Koreans, Cubans or Vietnamese
‘enemies’ in the world’s modest back lands

Now foments a new Cold War with the Kremlin
such as in Ukraine by regime change coup
but Donetsk & Crimea, far from crumbling
stands up to Kiev’s neo-Nazi hue

Thus fresh from ’successes’ up next:
Pivoting with mindless ease
supercilious muscles flexed:
Trying bully the Chinese!

Droning on about its ‘finest hour’
while fading fast its sense & power

+)
-the Beltway = the U.S. power elite
-phantom score = Contrary to e.g. John Quincy Adams’ foreign policy aspirations of 1821:
“But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”

 

Riding the ‘Coast Starlight’ at night

Drawn owlish train whistles
in plaintive shrillness
each piercingly chisels
through nightly stillness

Through windows in blurry caprice
darkly flash by power poles
Swaying coach cradling us in peace
lounging bodies, stirred up souls

Thunders through crossings’ clangs
of collapsing crescendo
fading as also-rangs
until mere innuendo

Through mountains, along banks
rolls the Coast Starlight
Each wheel set timely clanks
in silent moonlight

+)
-also-rang = rang: past tense of ring; from ‘also-ran’
-Coast Starlight = the Amtrak train between Seattle and Los Angeles

Nurses his verses

Feeble verse he nurses
mostly with reverses
Claims he just converses
though he rants & curses

in purloined blustering
sputtering, blundering:

Comely comedy
turns crotchety
Tearful tragedy
turns travesty

Thus his stilted blather
shows no dreams or sense
Foamy stanzas lather
puffed up in pretense

He prattles & perplexes
while verbiage accrues
Watch him how he digresses
swerves through ‘fast verse’ drive-thrus