Lounging in inanity or daring redeem humanity?

Your demands way gratuitous
so won’t change our behavior!
So ain’t it just fortuitous
Hi-Tech shall be our Savior!

Our likes are inviolable
so let change happen ‘out there’!
Our habits not abdicable
thus change cannot happen ‘here’!

We don’t care if action may redeem humanity
distracted we’ve lost traction mired in inanity

but fleetingly we stand on Life’s precarious stage

Why let days blur by in caprice
like, glimpsed through train windows, power poles?
There’s only in the moment peace
for our harried hearts & arid souls

Whether dawns again the morrow
or fades yet another day
lets relish joy amidst sorrow
Or tell me another way?

I’d maintain living in The Moment
is Humanity’s best bestowment …

Entrails twisted by Regret’s Blade

When young he hid out in the shadows of life
only in shallowest waters he’d wade
Reluctant to engage Life’s beauty & strife
rarely testing whether would make the grade

Pedaled quietly head down
flaunted Life’s ‘how & why’
with a ‘look am busy!’ frown
hoping just to glide by …

His Earthly Welcome now overstayed
turned old, cold, bowed, slowed, frayed & staid
His entrails twisted by ‘regret’s blade’
The ‘grave digger’ fingers his spade

A geezer mildly fearful of Hades
long time now since in his modest heydays

 

 

No shelter from Life’s welter

Life, o so bright and carefree
when nibbling sweets dainty
at mannered afternoon tea
sipped with persons fainty

But when living shallowly
our yearnings end up quenched
leaving us stuck callowly
From Life’s game we’ll be benched

There is simply no shelter
from Life’s worries & welter

 

All nonplus gush & fuss, not enough blush

Saving time only to see it squandered
on ‘easy come, easy go’ paths wandered?

Time rules in our enslaved existence
so we keep up the frantic fuss
traipsing the ‘path of least resistance’
and allowing it to own us

In ‘me first’ scuffles we collude
amidst unrelenting rush
Noses to multiple screens glued
Gush, much fuss. Not enough blush

So then why not let ‘mindful & slow’
rather than ’scurrying nonplussed’
prevail as the default way to go
chancing to let settle the dust?

Living at our own pace
let’s us wander with grace

 

Lions in defiance

In universe, who knows ‘created’
most human lives cold & cruel
precarious while inundated
by predators’ gnash, growl & drool

Human character malicious
too many a morsel wrenched
in tempers raging flagitious
out from pale fists tightly clenched

We’re contused in careening
searching Life for traction
Agonizing for meaning
detoured by distraction

If Life’s a ‘circus’
strive to be its lions
who in poked percuss
still roar in defiance

By vicious whips cracked
as raw welts burn
odds cruelly stacked
Still breathe to yearn

But never lose hope
with courage, flair
try changing the scope
Stare down despair:

Straighten from our serfly stance
from talk in abstraction
Embrace your life as romance
with steadfast exaction!

Human Life’s but a fleeting dash
til it ends in merciless crash

Placed on Earth to hit it off? Why then do we kvetch & scoff?

Are we placed here to get along
to act with sincerity
to stand up against what is wrong
in strong solidarity?

If put on Earth to share
how are we doing?
If put on Earth to care
how is it going?

Rather elbows sharp
mostly ‘me first’?
Don’t we harp & carp
our grudges nursed?

We seem stuck estranged
Since when? No mystery
for not much has changed
believe our history:

Humans hardly humane
as far as Species
We grab, lie, cheat & feign
& drain like leeches

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

 

Best be aware that li

Beware of ads offering ‘free’ gifts
by busty ‘babes’ with rosy cheeks
Beware too that those composing gifs
might be high-tech chattering geeks

Beware of the neighbor’s dog
as well as of all rifts
Beware of much too strong grog
and those drunks draining fifths

Best always to stay aware
that Human Life doesn’t play fair