Even as Winter cloaks our bodies and the rust of time
nestles into the bland and fatty marrow of our ruined peace, the dead dogs
of gone days bark in a distance that seem too near and too dream-like to
keep us happy.
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity.
Dollar signs light up in the eyes of those who would
chose our next king.
And the next dead man knows who he is but does not
know much more than that.
The full moon floats overhead like a period.
If you though the oracle would make it all clearer,
you thought too much.
The justice of it all is not enough to satisfy a taste
for blood.
Everything eventually dies.
But you hair apparently grows in the dark box.
And every ache and pain is the name of a disease that
leads from the crumbs on your kitchen floor to the marble at the top of a
lackluster hill in the shade of an unimpressive cedar.
Time is chaotic.
Fever is revelation.
October 17, 2007
Even as we find ourselves mummified within the veil of
Autumn’s cocoon, our little far away war is burning alive and the number
of dead and never to be born grow in the empty space between myth and
history.
Much has happened but everything seems to be the same.
The most powerful man in the world cries as he
prepares to be displaced by democracy.
And the many pestilent suitors who have lined up to
rape his wife can hardly wait for the first vote to be cast.
What had seemed a mere nonsequitor was neither mere
nor coincidental but rather was intentional and grave.
She who would have anticipated the future was
condemned to re-invent it.
He who should have recapitulated his own pre-history
instead recapitulated another’s.
And the price of gas no longer seems to be so lofty.
The moon no longer seems to be so lyrical.
But the humans remain.
Criminals and poets, like flies, are drawn to the
light and die young.
July 21, 2007
Congress seems to be concerned about the ongoing US
presence in Iraq where politically sponsored murder continues at the tax
payers expense.
The next civil holiday is Labor day.
Astronomers have long suspected there must be some
substance holding galaxy clusters together, otherwise galaxies would only
have the gravity from their visible stars, which would not be enough to
keep them from flying apart.
Irony is an emotion.
Coelacanths are the only living animals to have a
fully functional intercranial joint, which is a division separating the
ear and brain from the nasal organs and eye.
Female sharks can fertilize their own eggs and give
birth without sperm from males.
U.S. federal and state officials are beginning the
final phase of a two-year project to eradicate the Gambian pouched rats,
which can grow to the size of a cat and began reproducing in the remote
area about eight years ago.
The nearly half-full moon was spotted by a 5 year old
over the rooftops of South Philadelphia.
Those who practice it define evil.
Those who selectively remember the past are condemned
to reconstruct it.
May
13, 2007
US lawmakers were bothered to learn that Iraqi politicians
deliberated a lengthy vacation from their legislating this summer.Our president vetoed a bill that
would establish a troop withdraw from the least popular of our ongoing
wars.
The next civic holiday shall remember dead men who are now still
alive.
Statistics show there are 2.5 million fewer network TV watchers than
a year ago.
Astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is
potentially habitable.
The bomb was placed in a cart on the
side of the road and exploded when the bus passed by.
A nebula is an immense cloud of hot
interstellar gas and dust.
A new case of bovine
spongiform encephalopathy has been confirmed in a mature dairy cow.
It wouldn't threaten
Earth, but it would be so bright that people could read by it at night.
Adolf Eichmann had 3,500 employees.
Those who remember the past often forget details
which may haunt future generations.
There are few true circles in nature but among them
are the sun, the moon, the earth and the pupils of your eyes.
There are dead things that seem to be alive and live
things that seem to be dead.
But there is no justice in nature and very little in
civilization.
Children learn sarcasm before they learn to read.
April 20, 2007
The war in
Iraq is not going well for America.
The next civic holiday is memorial day.
North Korea has promised to stop making atomic bombs as soon as it
sees its frozen assets unfrozen.
The eyes of box jellyfish are located on cup-like structures that
hang from their cube-shaped bodies.
Evidence of water has been detected for the first time
on a planet outside our solar system.
And we now know that the sun makes silent music.
Near dusk, men with guns enter the village of
Awaranthalawa in northern Sri Lanka, shoot and kill six women and a boy,
and withdraw to the jungle.
Why do mad men destroy the things they once said they
loved just before they destroy themselves.
Metals found in lake mud in the central Peruvian Andes
have revealed the first evidence for pre-Colonial metalsmithing there.
The Attorney General of the United States is a
criminal.
Those who fail to remember past failures may make
unnecessary and predictable mistakes.
Sex is not a weapon but a refuge.
Men and women differ little at the beginning and the
end.
But the body ends with fingers, toes and hair.
There is not a place to hide when you are invisible.
March 30, 2007
Three suicide bombers driving chlorine-laden trucks
struck in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province.
The next civic holiday observes an ancient resurrection.
Military planes have flown over northern Thailand, dumping water in
an effort to contain haze.
And the
murder rate in our fair city is rising.
How many
ways can you say the same thing over and over?
Speaking is
the complete metaphorical opposite of eating.
Who among us
has not choked on his own excrement more than once?
If you enjoy
nothing more than the sunshine, why don’t you go to a place where the sun
is always shining?
If you
prefer variety, as such, why do you inhabit the monotony of change?
Those who
reside exclusively in the present are doomed not to relive the past but
to perform it.
Those who
relive the past seem to enjoy it the second time much more than the
first.
And the
audience is unchanging or if it is changing it is balding.
Life has a
terrible way of renewal.
Things
become simpler just before they involute.
People
become complicated and then they die.
February 28, 2007
The politically motivated tragedies go
on in Mesopotamia despite our peaceful democratic ambition.
As a precaution 159,000 turkeys were
slaughtered on the farm in Holton in Suffolk, about 130 miles northeast
of London.
The stock market plunged dramatically
yesterday despite the absence of major terrorist attacks upon US soil.
And space trash is accumulating.
Experiments find estrogen-like
pollutants that turn 'he' frogs into 'she' frogs.
Many Democrats salivate over the
throne.
The rodent predicted and early spring
but not before a bitter chill at winter’s reluctant surrender.
Those who believe that remembering
the past is preferable or nobler to the converse may be living in a
forgotten past in which scholarship belonged to the ruling class alone.
One’s stated politics are based on
aggravating or seducing one’s audience but we vote behind close doors for
the one we think we know and detest the least.
The moon knows why you are not
laughing.
And the end always begins like just
another moment.
January 28, 2007
War continues.
The next civil holiday is groundhog’s day.
The president of the United States gave a state of the
union address.
Democracy is preparing for the next regime change.
The Mummers strutted up Broad Street one week later
this year on a warm January day.
England came to the city of Brotherly Love to look at
the paint on our walls.
And things go on comfortably or uncomfortably these
cold short days.
The moon they say is crumbling slowly.
One longs for that which is elusive only so long as it
remains elusive.
Those who do not forget the past are doomed to predict
and observe its repetition.
Narcissism is the opposite of love.
The anonymous look for the letters in their names
everywhere.
We believe that which we desire to be true even if do
not realize what that is.
We are usually satisfied when the pain stops.
December 29, 2006
What if the war is escalating?
Is not the next civil holiday the first of the year?
With what shall we fill the garbage can of history?
Where is the next important milestone on our course to
becoming a bona fide imperial power that can rule, sustain and defend its
colonies?
And minutes later didn’t a bomb aboard a minibus
explode in a fish market south of Baghdad, killing 31 people.
And isn’t violence compatible with dialogue in a
democracy?
Were fathers able to turn to their kids and say, “That
was a good man”?
It wasn't his fault, but he had no ideas on what to do
about it.
Tobacco police will be ready to stub out offenders
after the clock strikes midnight.
The days are short, the nights are cold.
The moon observes us shivering between breaths.
Those who do not fear the past are doomed to remember only
that which they would chose to repeat.
Today we protect our wealth with human skin and fire
from the sky.
We shall learn to swim or drown in our happiness.
Will the next justice be better than the last?
December 24, 2006
And the war in Mesopotamia did not end in 2006.
And the next civil holiday celebrates the birth of god
in a barn.
The president of the United States is very wealthy and
commands more power than any other man on earth.
The solstice is passed and the days grow longer from
now until June.
The number of tobacco related deaths has fallen
significantly.
The number of murders in Philadelphia has increased
significantly.
The more heavily a frankincense tree is tapped, the
less likely it is to produce viable seeds.
The moon was a perfect crescent.
The United Nations security council voted unanimously
to impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt enrichment of uranium.
If sarcasm did not exist, man would have to invent it.
Humor is not logical.
Logic contains no room for humor.
Those who fail to remember the past in time to keep
from repeating it would be better off not remembering it at all.
For most of us, life ends peacefully every day at
least once.
December 8, 2006
The last civil holiday was celebrated by eating fowl
and cranberry.
The purpose of invading Iraq was to depose the
president of that country and bring much needed peace to oil rich
Mesopotamia.
Bush is expected to make a major speech about Iraq
before Christmas.
The Saudi’s deny that they are funding the Sunni’s.
India & Korea have been testing nuclear weapons.
The shadow of Winter is cast upon North America.
Pictures do not speak.
When you sell your soul, the price barely matters.
Ambivalence is the mother of invention.
Cell phones
don’t directly kill people.
High protein diets may cause cancer.
Molecules found in llamas' blood could lead to a
new warning system against germ warfare.
The future comes closer every day.
The past is best remembered by those who fail to
repeat it.
It is warm for only a moment and then it is cold.
And you are young for a lifetime.
November 7, 2006
The next civil holiday is veteran’s day.
October was the fourth deadliest month for American
troops in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.
Dozens of bottle-nosed dolphins, which are not fish, have died
after beaching themselves on a remote Mozambique coastline, mystifying
environmentalists who say mass beachings are very rare in the area.
"I'm not sure anything we do can prevent a future
tragedy," Mayor Mark Johnsrud said.
The world's seafood populations will
collapse by 2048.
Gambling will soon arrive in
Philadelphia and alcohol is freely available on election day.
Republicanism is waning and
Democraticism is waxing.
And the moon was full this week.
And the moon is no longer full.
The sad man from Tikrit has been
sentenced to death for crimes against humanity.
Those who cannot remember the past
often don’t know who they are and cannot always tell that they have
repeated it.
Change is an illusion.
Permanence is an illusion.
October 15, 2006
World War III continues.
And the last postal holiday celebrates the recognized
founder of the 15th century’s New World.
The president of the United States has denounced
ingenuity of his sworn enemy.
The war against terrorism is not a war so much as a
slogan.
But I think the moon is waning.
Gas prices are steeply lower in anticipation of the
up-coming elections.
Tragedy appeals to something in the human heart.
Those who forget the past are in the same boat as
those who never recognized it in the first place.
Autumn’s chill cradles us in October.
The transformation of the leaves in the Fall is unlike
the transformation of the generations of men.
Science should not be dogmatic.
Art should be subtle always but never boring.
Cancer is a disease of animals.
The crisp breath of winter approaches in the fall and is followed
later by its heavy body.
September 15, 2006
And the war grows old.
And the next
holiday is for mailmen.
The president of the United States visited an empty field
in Pennsylvania.
The next act of terrorism will not be televised.
But the full moon was like a flat tire.
The price of gas has been similarly deflated of late.
Things go on these days that previously went
unnoticed.
Those who are not doomed best remember the past.
Those who are not forced to do the same thing over and
over again are still allowed to do the same thing over and over again.
The summer is gone and the rain is still here.
Change can be good but can take great effort.
Science shows us images that mirror the gaps between
our thoughts in such a way that we behold them as novel.
And art is the illusion that perception can be
harvested.
Fall is brewing.
Dreams are drawn in red ink.
And the clouds are laughing.
August 26, 2006
And wars continue.
But the next
civil holiday is summers end.
And the president has definite opinions about what is
happening in the Middle East.
But what will happen next is anybody’s guess?
And the moon is more compelling now than this time
last year.
And the price of gas is still cheap compared to the
price of coffee.
And China cracks down on striptease funerals.
And security incidents disrupt US flights.
And Israel seeks troops from Muslim nations.
And angels dance across the retinas of the blind.
And terrorism is defined by the terrorized and not the
terrorizer.
But those who fail to forget the past are condemned to
pre-defined expectations about the future.
But social evolution occurs for reasons that are not
always understood until they no longer apply.
But a warm dry spell has been brewing.
But oxygen is plentiful in the dessert.
The history of the world has been written backwards
and right to left in the margins of a madman’s drawing book.
The language does not know its own limitations.
July 22, 2006
And the war continues like a fire in
woods.
And the next
civil holiday is Labor day.
The president of the United States recently announced
that a large portion of the American public despises his party and what
they stand for—a self-revelation that was met with great applause.
What will happen next?
I have not seen the moon in days.
The price of gas has been buoyed by the high waters of
spreading war in oil rich Mesopotamia.
State sponsored terrorism is commonest in countries
that have heads of state who practice religion.
Those whose self-interests rule the world allow others
to appear to be doing it for them.
A culture that does not adapt to pivotal moments in
its history will necessarily experience revolution instead of
transformation.
The summer is hot and the rains have been torrential.
Research on early experiences has demonstrated that
disorganized maternal behavior causes offspring that are vulnerable to
stress.
Change is good but permanence is good as well.
June 12, 2006
A leading figure in the endless
parade of politically motivated violence has become the victim of his own
infamy but there is still no end expected to violence in Iraq despite our
most creative efforts.
The next
federal holiday celebrates a revolution predicated upon opposition to
tyranny.
Our president was elected by a majority of the voters
but now suffers from very low popularity.
Inflation has taken root driven by the high cost of
energy.
The price of oil stabilizes after a meteoric rise.
Truth is as elusive as the proof of god.
People are slowly returning to the cities.
The moon was full recently just over Camden in the
Philadelphia sky at 11pm.
The greatest crime against humanity is the one that at
once institutionalizes dehumanizing forces and makes them seem
acceptable.
Great wealth is rarely earned and never deserved.
A culture that wills its own transformations can be
assumed to be deteriorating.
It is cooler now than it was earlier this Spring even
as we reach the solstice.
We don't even understand our clichés. .
May 29, 2006
Politically motivated violence
continues in Iraq despite our best intentions.
Today we
celebrate the dead and on the next federal holiday we celebrate the
freedom that only death could liberate.
Our president apologized for talking like a cowboy.
The Pope went to Auschwitz today and asked God why?
Politicians do things publicly with the same loaded
intentions that dogs use to mark their territory with urine.
Those who do not forget the past are not immune to the
habit of making old mistakes.
We are now used to the rising price of gas.
The moon continues to orbit us.
Lack of imagination is a forgivable crime against
civilization in most cases.
We reward those who entertain us and make us richer much
more than those who heal us and protect our freedom.
We have no idea what we are eating most of the time.
It is warm again.
Before we knew that we were alone in the universe,
there was a sense of being alone in the universe.
March 8, 2006
Politically motivated violence, murder &
destruction have been escalating in the part of the world most targeted
by the “War on Terror”.
The next federal holiday celebrates those whose lives
have ended and originally celebrated the dead of the US Civil War.
Erroneously calling it a renewable source of energy,
our president went to India to share our nuclear technology with that
established nuclear power, which has not signed the anti-nuclear
proliferation treaty.
Iran threatened the United States with "harm
and pain" Wednesday.
The word genuine at best means very little.
The idea that those who forget to remember the past
tend to envision the future with a systematic error that favors
repetition of previous political events betrays a prejudicial belief that
man’s pre-history was an expression of his cruder political nature
whereas all subsequent history is somehow more refined.
Passive forms of genocide are occurring.
Venus charms the dawn horizon like a tiny gem on a
gigantic ring.
Science reflects what we prefer reality to be like in
a language that we accept as irrefutable.
The ends sometimes justify the means but not always,
and never excuse the intentions.
Not all fat is the same.
The weather shows signs of escaping the rodent’s
paranoia.
Sincerity is the most flattering part of Irony.
February 22, 2006
Politically motivated destruction continues in Iraq
where injury to a sacred Shiite shrine has raised outrage that now rivals
that provoked by Danish cartoon caricatures of the Prophet.
The next federal holiday is not Lent.
The current president of the United States of America
is defending a controversial decision that he knew nothing about until it
was already approved according to the White House.
The cost of
energy has lead to inflation!
The totalitarian government of Iran is offering to
financial assistance to the democratically elected government of
Palestine because Israel & the United States are withdrawing funds in
an effort to keep the money from being stemmed to state sponsored terrorist
activities.
Half of the face of the moon appeared in the sky
recently.
The smiles in old photographs reflect a time when the
human face could still be genuine.
Those who remember the past are too often
unimaginative about the future.
Pluto may have rings.
The weather is not more predictable than the news.
Irony is frequently ephemeral and is never timeless.
February 13, 2006
Politically motivated murder continues in democratic Iraq.
The next federal holiday mostly celebrates dead white men.
Does
President Bush believe that freedom is slavery?
Peacekeepers
fired on protesters who were unsatisfied with the recent elections.
And the vice
president of the most powerful military force on earth shot a friend in
the face with a rifle unintentionally.
Cold weather
and deep snow has come upon us again after record warm weather just as
predicted by the wise rodent of February.
If men are
like rats, our memories are recorded backwards.
Iran is
developing nuclear technology.
Gas is
cheaper on Kirkwood Highway now that competition has been restored.
The moon was
full last night.
Truth is
often temporary and relative and is rarely if ever permanent or absolute.
Children
understand mythology the way that alcoholics understand intoxication.
Beauty is
not abstract.
February 1, 2006
Operation Iraqi freedom continues even after free
elections have occurred in Iraq where politically motivated violence is
still a daily occurrence.
The next federal holiday celebrates the governmental
chief executives of the most powerful nation on Earth chief among whom
are a man who had wooden teeth and another who wore a beard but no
moustache.
Last night our current “strong man” in the White House
delivered a speech that called for an end to our dependence of fossil
fuels.
Tomorrow the sentient rodent from Pennsylvania should
wake up and see no shadow as the warmest January in years fades into the
uncertainty of February.
Today spokesmen for the government of the nation
known as Iran said that it was poised to retaliate against the reporting
of its disputed nuclear program to the UN Security Council and vowed that
they would "continue on the road to victory" and called US
President George W. Bush a warmonger who should be put on trial.
Rumors have been issued that insinuate that the US
army is not over extended at this time, which is a claim that has been
confirmed by the Secretary of Defense.
According to the Attorney General of the United
States it is entirely legal for the President of the United States to break
the law from time to time under circumstances that justify the illegal
actions.
The housing market seems to be cooling off in the US
and a terrorist organization was democratically elected to lead
Palestine.
With a see-through body and a head that is unprotected
by a skeleton, Paedocypris progenetica, a member of the carp family, only
grows to 7.9 millimeters but the males have large muscles that may be
used to grasp the females during copulation.
Red dwarfs are about one-fifth as massive as the Sun
and up to 50 times fainter but they are among the commonest stars in the
universe.
A team of scientists has discovered the most
Earth-like planet yet.
In fact, British researchers found that those smokers
who spontaneously quit were much more likely to not resume smoking than
those who planned a "quit strategy" long in advance.
Memory is structured like objects arranged in a
landscape and is written in the oils of the brain in a wordless code.
Those who attempt to create new art usually create
something else.
The darkest months of the year are inspired by a
motive that comes from the black marrow of our bones.
The truth is relative, arbitrary and sometimes
democratic.
January 24, 2006
Because of possible voting irregularities during the recent
Iraqi election 227 boxes of votes were thrown out, which reportedly had
no meaningful affect on the overall vote totals.
The next federal holiday was once two separate
holidays dedicated to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln respectively
until 1968 when they were combined to honor both and presumably all past
and future presidents regardless of competence, legacy or merit.
Evidence pointed to the existence of a system of
"outsourcing" of torture by the United States and that it was
highly likely European governments were aware of it.
A volcano on an uninhabited island erupted early
Wednesday, spewing an ash plume about 5 miles into the sky.
The U.S. trade deficit reportedly narrowed
unexpectedly as shipments of capital goods propelled exports and oil
prices trimmed imports.
Thousands of Muslim pilgrims tripped over luggage,
causing at least 345 deaths— at least 100 more than last years stampede.
A man who shot the pope in 1981 was released from
prison.
With a baby being born every eight seconds, and a
death every 12 seconds and the nation gaining an immigrant every 31
seconds, the US population increases by one person every 14 seconds.
The Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration’s
attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.
And there are more than 9,000 pieces of space debris
orbiting the Earth.
The moon appeared in the evening’s eastern sky on
1/12/06 and was half full with the flat edge oriented superiorly at
moonrise.
We fear the thing that we hate when it seems to be more
powerful than we are.
A study recently showed that the human mind can
rapidly and consistently differentiate faces predetermined to be either
beautiful or ugly suggesting that this ability is “programmed” in the
brain like hunger and thirst.
Momentary beauty rarely inspires great art.
Meaning is created in the mind when two or more things
are observed to have a specific relationship.
You are specifically not what you eat.
January,
11, 2006
An increase
in acts of politically motivated violence has been noted as Iraqis await
the results of their recent, otherwise successful elections.
The
next federal holiday celebrates a man who was shot for his part in
leading a non-violent war in favor of expanding human rights in this
country at a time when liberty and freedom were not shared equally among
races and other minorities.
“This missing aid, which was promised by donors for so
long but not yet delivered, is really a life and death issue.”
Gas prices remain relatively high but the price of an
equal volume of coffee, though stable, is much greater.
Iran is defiantly pursuing production of enriched
Uranium despite protests from Western countries that already possess
nuclear weapons.
Fear of drought and climate change has Europe on the
alert.
Fear of avian influenza has Turkish peasants
euthanizing their poultry.
Fear disrupting the balance of power in the Supreme
Court has US Senators deliberating.
For the first time in 13 years Americans have borrowed
less than they did compared to the preceding month for two consecutive
months.
Nonetheless, the stock market is thriving just as
confidence in bonds and real estate investments wanes.
And the moon is waxing now, is more than half-full and
appears nightly through the skylight above my kitchen.
No one has ever seen a black hole, but astronomers
study the way matter and energy behave around them.
“Primitive” people worshiped and explained through
religion and myth certain natural powers and processes that were
perceived to be awesome or supernatural.
The smallest particle of matter was one believed to be
the atom.
Those who fail to periodically revise their
assumptions about the past are condemned to repeat them.
January
4, 2006
Acts of politically motivated violence occur daily in
Iraq where the recent election was judged to be valid by the United
Nations although the results will not be available for weeks to come and
are sure to be contested by minority factions.
The recent US federal holiday is traditionally
celebrated on the evening just before it is observed but this year was
observed on the day after it occurred.
The price of gas at a certain station on Kirkwood
Highway rose today to $2.29 now that its closest competitor has shut
down for routine maintenance and as the price of US crude oil spiked by
$1.86 in response to complex events in the Ukraine.
The Justice Department is now conducting an
investigation that will focus on the recent disclosure of information to
the press related to warrantless surveillance conducted by the
National Security Agency after "911."
