Best Substrate Poems
within the catastrophe awaits a notion
a hook, a thread, an unfurling devotion
forever falling - cascading in time
to always be his and he always mine
sometimes we follow a fading star
find stories in its essence about who we are
about-turn and unravel to expose the substrate
temptation not required for emergence of fate
take a gamble to force the reveal
let go of languor, add tension we can feel
step off the edge and await pure black
find ourselves at the beginning of the very same track
I know him, I've known this but let me dive deeper
uncover the secrets not even known to their keeper
embrace the objective, move ahead of the curve
be inside the slow dance, but simultaneously observe
view backwards, race past predestination
objectively witness moments of true captivation
see from a distance what cognition requires
show me the equation that explains our desires
for we circle and cross and create maps in the sky
bound on this path and I need to know why
there must be wisdom to our blinking pulsation
a purpose that explains all of creation
let me learn of the spark and effervesce in the trail
become one with the meaning as you lift the veil
let me overload and explode into glorious ash
to immerse and burn out in final rapturous flash
Blake’s world in a grain of sand
This plastic bottle in my hand
Welcome to the new Fantasy Island
Of plastic trash, a brave new land
This tropical island, it's perfect for me
Plastic parts and baggies floating on the sea
Maybe melt it down and build homes for the needy
or a giant vacation raft for the greedy
With helipads, private yacht docks
Big towering plastic wave blocks,
Rubber beach, water bottle boardwalk
Plastic vat-grown flesh of real livestock
The morality of the cancer cell
Substrate feeders, eating pell-mell
The world’s becoming a garbage pail
No thought to the inevitable
And climate change serves their agenda well
Because the human contribution’s debatable
While they discuss warming, the cartel’s
Strip malls and subdivisions continue to swell
Doomed is the animal that craps its nest
Any intelligent species should be distressed
A problem that’s not yet addressed
I’m not so sure we’ll pass the test
History will certainly not treat us kind
The obvious answer is easy to find
We have turned a greedy eye blind
To the inevitable impact of short-term design
Of wild spaces, said Edward Abbey
The world, and humankind’s necessity
Without wild spaces, wild humans can’t be
Which serves the moral absentees
However, it does seem to me
Abbey missed one fact that’s key
There will always be crazies like me
Who’d burn it down to set it free
4/9/16
As air and leaf litter are substrate for the bird.
And what makes a human. Separation from the substrate.
Believing the substrate and the subject are separately defined.
Whatever gives the poem form - three lines - is the substrate.
Things will be said. The signer and the seer must supply the words
Which are the substrate of the mind. A beautiful week ahead.
No hundred year storms, normal summer warming.
Your bones are white as lightning and strong as sticks and stones.
At Pat's 80th b'day party most of us are old and jolly.
250,000 port-o-potties. There's a way to wash one out
And a way not to. Arctic ice melt. Slushies. One can count
Past one or nine by inserting zero to keep the rows.
Implied is an order beyond the small order we impose.
Goes to greatness human and divine. The two white wines
Death brings to the garden are the love between good friends -
Abstract. Suppose there is no afterlife, to understand the end
Imagine the beginning - no brain, no mind, no name, no I. Zero
Had already been inflated and the rose was in the garden.
Often after the fallen snow is swept, glory
Is found when the treading surface is clear.
A light dusting is a breeze to remove. For heavy slush I trade
My broom for a shovel. It is foolhardy to pretend
That things with bristles can glide
Between and expand the substrate/snow interface.
Between the air and my skin there is no interface
Even my coon skin cap only provides small glory
Reminding me that menthol shaving cream enhances the glide
Of my razor and the sting of the cold air, but also makes clear
My ambition to clear the snow away and not pretend
To scatter dandruff from the icy landscape. It seems I must trade
My alter ego of a cosmetologist for that of a cosmologist. Such a trade
Will enable me to outgrow this climate. Then my interface
Communication skills will improve so I won’t use silence to pretend
I am a solid, deep thinking woodsman and I can just enjoy the glory
Of making small talk about the weather, thus allowing me to clear
My conscience about past regrets and glide
Through interpersonal interactions moment by moment. Ah! To glide
Like snow from the blade of a shovel, I wouldn’t trade
That social grace for 10,000 driveways clear
Of snow or ice or volcanic ash. Interface--
That common boundary, the transition from disgrace to glory
As I become a cosmologist and no longer pretend
That people are stupid zoo animals and hopefully not pretend
That I am a stupid zoo animal. Seasons of the year glide
Together and glide apart. Midwinter ice in all its glory
Is dangerous and fun. Will you trade
Your cramp-ons for ice skates? The seasonal interface
From spring to summer is never clear.
The same is true for the other seasons, let’s be clear
About that. I have stressed this before and will again; to pretend
Is to deny. Everything solitary has an interface
With something else and therefore is not solitary. To glide
Is to not experience friction. At some point you may want to trade
Slip for grip. Never bask in glory
Unearned. The web interface has clear
Flaws, don’t be ignorant. Glory may never pretend
To glide toward despair, but neither of those would I be willing to trade.
5th Ave. was shoulder to shoulder with
hungry lunch-seeking business men
and women. Ricardo unpacked
his horn nervously and a foot cymbal.
Spring, early street season, too cold
for most musicians but he needed money.
His lips kissed the cold metal mouthpiece.
Carrying the saw and the pulaski.
Cutting brush for a fire line high up,
where raptors and ravens fly. No sound
but wind if you could subtract the crew
working and dirty, joking during lunch.
A good year it had been sitting in the soil
feeling Ricardo's body on the mountainside.
Mountains moving as good a feeling.
Alone in his town, most neighbors at work,
housecleaning done, Ricardo settled down
with pen to write and ate lunch.
People = chickadees.
Clutch size, substrate, territory, gestation period.
Mating rituals. Use of alcohol and hallucinogens.
Forms of cancer, heart disease. Burial rites, memories.
Creation myths, beliefs for which there is no evidence.
Range: tundra to tropics.
- Summer rain is a passing moment ~
which will soon be pierced by sun rays -
quote by poet
Merry sound of happiness
a little rain satisfies the air
The clouds are the shadows,
after sunny days
Aquarius is wise,
nature painted in watercolor
Countless lyrical drops
crystals sprinkle in the flower bells
Nobody would care,
neither bird, flowers nor teasing bees
Can smell the wet substrate
and breathe pure thoughts everywhere
Collecting dripping drops in a jam jar
with an apostle spoon in silver
Summer rain in triumphant symphony
scattered through paradise
With frugality and a lot of profit
- until the soul is satisfied
Red string blue string
plays the tune of every being
fifth dimensional knowing!
Vibrating strings sing
one string two string
supersymmetry everything!
Could be just jetsam
a memory engram
is the universe just a hologram?
A mathematical probability
or quantum ambiguity
perhaps the answer for humanity.
Our finite minds aloof
understanding such a spoof
theory of everything in your proof!
We exist within your vibration
in the language of all creation
love hums in such elation!
Dancing in substrate of reality
quarks, warp speed past duality
transisting time in cosmic actuality.
One string two string
sub-atomic paring
loving her is everything!
~ ~ ~ ~
In the old woods did yang jump and laugh
For the weather was good for the fish he sought
In the ornate mansion did ying fret and cry
For wealth was the reason her parents fought
Deep within, she hoped she had a bit of yang’s peace
The hook was bad and yang hoped for a bit of ying’s wealth
To mend the old hook the fish incessantly did tease
The best did ying have but still suffered a fragile health
In a corner somewhere, yang knew something was missing
But simply dismissed the piercing idea of the impossible
Somewhere far, ying had that special feeling again teasing
But simply dismissed the piercing idea of the impossible
A fortnight in that picturesque made a deep mark
Which differences helplessly could not efface
The hybrid was strong and nothing did it lack
For it will take more than death for the mark to erase
The ying-yang was no respecter of time and place
It simply brought the dispersed pieces together
And carefully taught the proud to be mild and meek
In total obedience to the power of the love they seek
Like magic, it carried the two to the world they searched
For the odds of life and principles of man it defied
Creating a quintessential world where the duo perched
With only the strength and power of their love to be relied on
Like a lock and key, the pieces fitted exactly
Incomprehensibly making the impossible possible like a dream
Like an enzyme and substrate, ying-yang together grew perfectly
With its infectious power flowing about like a stream
Silently granting anyone willing the complete healing
Ready to free anyone from the rancor celibacy could not mend
It shows itself blatantly to a duo with a common feeling
And rewards those who listen with a jewel they can’t lend
A jewel meant for and only worn by two destined to wear
A jewel that tells a sad and happy story of a once blind pair
Who were deaf to the cries and screams of some power within
Instructing them with a map, to find their destined true love
life without love
was how nature planned it
instinct was the way
instinct was the way
was how nature planned it
life without love
symbiosis
when two become partners
instinctive for one
instinctive for one
when two become partners
symbiosis
the mighty oak tree
supports many life forms
inadvertently
inadvertently
supports many life forms
the mighty oak tree
winds... mass destructors
for some life dependant
pollinating breeze
pollinating breeze
for some life dependant
winds... mass destructors
the early bird dies
fickle spring... substrate frozen
instinct to migrate
instinct to migrate
fickle spring... substrate frozen
the early bird dies
who gave life knowledge
nature... okay... who taught it
self-preservation
self-preservation
nature... okay... who taught it
who gave life knowledge
who gave life knowledge
nature... okay... who taught it
an open question
an open question
nature... okay... who taught it
who gave life knowledge
black and blue
hate or an accident
on reflection
on reflection
hate or an accident
black and blue
life's poetry
look out of your window
no cities bare
no cities bare
look out of your window
life's poetry
the babbling brook
it's banks alive with beauty
rocks giving shelter
rocks giving shelter
it's banks alive with beauty
the babbling brook
oceans swell... seeking
waves rushing to distant shores
raving... ripples blush
raving... ripples blush
waves rushing to distant shores
oceans swell... seeking
their probing beaks
waders on the low tide flats
mud their larder
mud their larder
waders on the low tide flats
their probing beaks
the curlew calling
otters on a lake's shoreline
the moors... life thriving
the moors... life thriving
otters on a lake's shoreline
the curlew calling
my muse
she leads my hand to paper
it scribes for nature
it scribes for nature
she leads my hand to paper
my muse
sand blasting pebbles
waves eroding shorelines
fossils exposed
fossils exposed
waves eroding shorelines
sand blasting pebbles
Approaching life with no scrutinizing dispositions.
Relishing their youth,
Basking in the freedom of their most lively years.
Or so they say.
Young falling minds:
Everything is limited by perception,
Perception leading to misconception,
Misconception gradually surging to holistic pessimism.
Fallen minds don’t possess frame,
Or rather let me say, they are cluelessly lame.
Back and forth, right or left no distinction all is same
Elaborating: Life is just pretty much tame.
Their parturition in a time of good unlimited opportunities,
Yet at the brink of cowardice they are deceived,
And lazily cannot even perceive
That their lives are being sieved
And slowly but badly manipulated,
Later tension and crisis are manifested.
Unfortunately it is then late,
Their future has already been compromised,
The moisture has already vaporized,
All that is left is a dehydrated life substrate
Then all becomes one hell of a date,
Known as regret.
A sultry summer heat hangs in the air;
July’s hot sun now takes her final bow.
Across the bar the sparks fly ‘tween the pair
as searching eyes are seeking to avow
the longing heat that burns so deep within
and causes summer passions to combust
with deep demands for taste of carnal sin
while seeking to dispel desires for lust.
Together leaving lost so deep in thought
while knowing well this tryst should never be
yet longing to fulfill what lust has wrought
and douse the burning flames of sin’s decree.
Illicit love leaves promises deplete
a substrate of the sultry summer heat.
June 2, 2020
Mother Tongue
by
Rick Folker
March 15, 2017
Words...
Words bereft of beauty
bitter words
barely concealing the
viscious intent of
opaque surfaces
concealing truth with
the fake, urging us to destroy - not to make
swallowing the ashes; leaving rage in their wake
Separating the hater from the hate
But I too, have words
Words that patiently ripen
beneath that opaque substrate
they wait, they wait
Roiling like lava my words.
They strain to remember -
Ashen shades of history's mistakes
The faulty rememberings
We continue to remake
Of sharp words, hate words
I have no need to take.
Is it possible that now;
After so much time, after so much pain
We still ache and break?
Are we unable to create, celebrate, or
possibly embrace?
Can we find the courage re-speak, re-learn
The I in me, the thou in you
and find! fail! but at least try
to imagine better words, healing words
Or are we to gather the ashes of bitterness again?
In the singularity
perfectly good poems
are being written by laughing
and crying machines
washing machines and dryers
about their daily tasks
and ambivalences
which will be indistinguishable
from those of future
farmers and philosophers.
In the singularity
evolution can be said
to be the master sorter of data
as in the factories
of the suns
where protons are smashed together
and unusual weather patterns
make consciousness interesting
for its complete dependence
on the substrate of the brain and body.
In the singularity
everything anyone once did
always remains current
as if invented yesterday
for an immediate purpose
such as curing cancer
although that may be unnecessary
to achieving immortality
i.e. the happiness one feels
the day before thanksgiving.
I must state
That I am great,
I have a crest,
I’m simply the best.
Oh yes – I’m a Great Crested Newt!
I am brownish black,
With warts all over my back,
My orange tum has black spots
It looks just like join-the-dots.
Oh my – I’m a Great Crested Newt!
If I lose a toe or a leg
Another one grows instead,
My spots on my tum
Are different for everyone.
Oh wow – I’m a Great Crested Newt!
Being an amphibian is great,
I can move on any substrate,
Beneath rocks I sleep
And under compost heaps.
Oh yawn – I’m a Great Crested Newt!
In Winter when the year is late,
I need to hibernate,
In Spring I awake
And to water I take.
Oh gulp – I’m a Great Crested Newt!
I do a dance when I mate,
The females think I am great!
Up to 300 eggs are laid,
Not all hatch though, I’m afraid.
Oh boy – I’m a Great Crested Newt!
I have to be careful of fish
As I make them a tasty dish,
I come out at night
As Earthworms I bite,
Oh yum – I’m a Great Crested Newt!
Being a Newt is cool!
I might live in your pool.
But please don’t touch
I’m rare, as such.
Oh dear – I’m a Great Crested Newt!
My species is protected
So I must not be collected
Look after me
Or there won’t be
Any Great Crested Newts!
I wrote this when I was 8 years old, on 28th May 2013.
Grand emotions
Monolith
Sending my soul
To the dark abyss
My store of strength is
Paper-thin
Lying beneath
Monolithic skin
Reaching upward,
I dare not try
To touch the obelisk
Shining high
The substrate of my soul
Is dark, and small, and
Still. It folds
Into the darkness of
Silent space
Monolithic obelisk
Gone….not a trace.