Weather Everywhere You Look, Up and Down

everyone is talking
about rainy days these days everyday
it is raining all over the world this year
or so it seems, so they say, my uncle said

because i heard neither the planet nor God
is making any new water
maybe a dash of global warming
is increasing the humidity

so it appears there is more wet about
at the same time, don’t you know?
didn’t mean to get ultra scientific
hope i didn’t like lose you

what i am saying is: maybe the amount of water
is the same, but because there is more rain
it’s not drying up as quickly and it looks like more
i'm not selling umbrellas or anything

military scientists

to evaluate their possible use in defense applications
military scientists launched a battery of tests on the intelligence
of elephants, because everyone knows they are smart.

a final group of twelve animals selected from around the world
were flown to an undisclosed military base
for complete mental exams.

the elite dozen pachyderms were ushered into a classroom
where it took four days to get them seated at their desks
before testing could begin.

expenditures for the nearly month long project
were in excess of eleven million dollars
and a whole train load of peanuts.

the end result was, yes they were smart,
but could not shoot rifles
as they have no thumbs.

terminal velocity

scientifically speaking,
the slowest cycle
of the entire planet earth’s water movement
is called plate tectonics
unless you count grandpa taking a piss

but then, all the water of this planet
is already made
and then recycled
so tell grandpa to quit wasting his time
he’s not helping anybody

instead, this is about the nothing particle stuff
that gets sucked and sucked
up, up, upworthy into the sky
where it gets formed together and then
voila’!
is water again

okay, so,
then it comes down as rain
now do you know how far it falls?
a long, long, long, half a mile?
more?
it falls falling, falling
at terminal velocity when
the downward force of gravity
equals the upward force of drag

one drop rocketing directly into your eyeball
as you happen to look up,
well then, no wonder it makes you blink and sputter.
think about it!
and carry a damn umbrella, you knucklehead

Clean Water

dear people of the future
how are you, how’s it going?
look, i want to say
when i brush my teeth i think about
the people of the earth that live in areas
with a shortage of clean water to drink,

i worry about the clean water availability
not overly, but i am aware
of a potential problem of supply
so i turn the tap water volume down in the sink
when i don’t immediately need it

conservation has to matter,
look what happened to the buffalo
that once were bumper to bumper on the plains
and were shot for sport from passing trains

will water shortage be a problem for everyone
in a hundred years or twenty?
and while i am brushing i wonder who else
is thinking about water

water rights are being purchased
is that a “so what?” or not?
you could tell me
slip a note into my dream or something
can you do that?

half our brain

scientists say we're using half our brain
what half are you using?
the upper delta
or the lower mandella?

i wouldn't bet on it,
want to sleep on it?
oh, i made up that scientist part

now go drive in traffic
but watch out, will you!
a lot of them are riding on
the rims of their lower mandible

weed

i yanked a weed today
then She helped me

address the weed
become one with the weed

that's the only way you get them out of the ground
that was my lesson

in fifty thousand years the star people will say
She really knew how to do it

perfection and the illusion of time

I'd just come in from the pond area where a couple of strangers are hiding out. M. had seen the migrant frogs in a brief scuffle this morning, diving, hiding and rushing through the flowers around the pond. Up to something.
Now I'll get along with today's poem.


you had to be there
to appreciate ten a.m.

when the bird clock chirped
a white-throated sparrow song

the coo-coo clock wooden bird came out
sang and then slammed the door

my grandparent's Seth Thomas chimed

the old wind-up on the metal fireplace mantle
gong-sounded the hour

the time illusion
had smiled for me

globalization

Globalization will do away with choice
one burger, one car, one house
nothing to decide, why should we complain?
it's less expensive to make it all the same

And why should it stop? with stem cell technology
one dog: part cat, part fish, part chicken
when you're done playing with it and teaching it tricks
you can eat it

maybe we are

maybe we are
the last to know
nature

did you pave it,
fence and gate it?
put up lights and cameras
and toll takers

those a few hundred years ago
drank clear water from the streams
blinked and are gone now forever

continuing

in flashes of spaces i see
life continuing in a game on another level
sort of an eternal corporate promotion
into a mathematical position
with which we are not as yet familiar

the springer that sprung
need i say more
i just read a letter from my Auntie Dorthy
who mentioned Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
that's a little more immediate
at least i can get there from here

Design

Man is designed well.
Sleep and he is recharged.
Like dogs and cats
And doesn't have to be plugged in.
There are a few i'l like to.

b.c. and counting

a dozen years before Christ
what year did everyone think it was?
they didn't walk around saying it's twelve before zero
and they must have had a New Years
so what year did they celebrate?

in five b.c. if you told someone you'd pay them the money you owed in four b.c.
they'd squint, scratch, then club your head

what did they do when they had to fill out an official form
and write down the year of birth?
"you wrote you were born in minus 36
how did you figure that?
that'll cost you three shiny stones and a chunk of obsidian for being a wise ass"

baking soda

while cutting hot serrano peppers for soup
she also cut her finger
not for the soup, it just happened

the soup was good but her finger burned
painfully hot because she
had worked it around in pepper juice

eating with on hand
she kept her irritated hand
in a kettle of water on the table

water didn't help and it looked novel
i didn't ask her to pass anything

later she found relief
by rubbing it with baking soda

the next evening i used my fingers to sprinkle
ground chili peppers on my food, then rubbed my eye
i was going blind or die trying

she told me - put baking soda on it, baking soda
i considered putting my head in a plastic bag
with baking soda in it
instead i rinsed my eye with water and it worked
or i would have tried soda pop

precious junk

my precious junk is all mine
and it's senseless to get rid of it
no one wants these accumulated pseudo treasures
and i sure as hell won't have a sale so some knucklehead
can wander up, scratch their fat butt and ask,
will you take a dollar for it?
get the hell out of here!
i 'm keeping it all, every bit
living with it and loving it
Silas Marner was on to something

when i'm dead let who ever is left deal with it
sell it or dig a ditch and throw it in
but for now, these keep sakes are memories of a lifetime
i am surrounded by the clutter
so i must love it all
where it is
lined up and piled high
i'll walk around it when i have to
once in a while i notice something in particular, smile and wonder
what is it and where in the hell did that come from?
when i am gone and they have to sift through all this crap
they'll say with pride
at least he never collected Beanie Babies

morse code

in the days when i was a
ham radio operator i liked
the Morse Code best and spent my time
sending and receiving dots and dashes

send out a call to anyone who
was standing by out there
and someone replies
then a conversation began

some hams used big rigs
large antennas and fifteen hundred watts of power
or illegally more and could shake passing car windows
mine was the basic unit
a light bulbs worth of power

from Northern California i talked to
Antarctica with my one hundred watts
once i made contact with a guy in Philadelphia
who was using a rain gutter as an antenna
and ten watts of power

it's strange that you know
if you like the other person
just as quickly as when
talking to a stranger face to face
there is never any doubt
you get along with the other, or don't
not by what they say, just by
how they send the dots and dashes



Of course, even poets have a point of view, and as
with Morse Code, you can read the person in there
cause we can't hide ourselves, although we think we do.

the ultimate in automation

here they are
there are no others
nothing like them
god bless them
suspenders

you want to wear your pants loose
and keep them from dragging on the ground
you got it
the one and only
nothing tight around your waist
hold 'em up to the heavens
suspenders

the very name emits dream

plase note: while the british call them braces
they also drive on the wrong side of the road
they also think suspenders
hold up womens garter belts
so be it
i like women either way
with or without

invented in 1822, thanks you Albert Thurstoon
a.k.a. galluses (not Thurston - suspenders)
galluses is a variation for gallows
let's stop there

this internet

I.
this internet
the new greatest show on earth
information galore
slimy, quick cheap, down and dirty
pivotal, pointed and prostituted

how much do you want
how much do you need
how much can you take
how much do you care

II.
a blog is something that must be worked
tilled and toiled over
not like paying money
to name a star after yourself

now ready for that
i'd rather stand by the sea
wait for a fish to jump
and say, "that one is jack"
(that one is me)

III.
this little piece of cyber space
i'm going to measure off as mine
then work on it, lay it out
to make it shine, shine, shine, shine, shine

the pyramids

who built the pyramids
back then

do you think we could
do it again?

some history

first the sumerians began to write
then envelopes with glue came about after they found
a dead horse stuck to the sidewalk

then the post office made stamps
more horses turned up missing

when mail started getting lost
they blamed it on the pony express
and raised the price of stamps

they tried morse code, radio, town criers, tv and computers
not in that order
but letters and envelopes wouldn’t go away
hallmark was happy
and the price of stamps went up

bulk rates for advertisers were invented
and immediately the rates went down
dit-dit-dit,dah-dah-dah.dit-dit-dit