(Cabin Sunset, summer 2025)
The Heat of the Moment
Settling into our new mountain cabin,
Dogs and humans equally overheated
In the shadeless August afternoon,
The only way to be is naked.
Stuff strewn around
Bed to one side, kitchen the other,
Camp chairs with panting dogs
On an old Persian rug in-between.
Cabin with unfinished interior
Waits for insulation, paneling and flooring,
But in this moment nothing is missing
Except maybe a fan.
No water we haven’t brought,
Nor power not in some kind of rechargeable battery,
Yet we find a strong signal FM station
Playing one classic rock song after another.
And it takes me back to another time
Living as a 70’s teen in the suburbs when FM was king,
Then in the 80’s as a young man off grid in the hills
When a stack of cassettes was all we had or wanted.
Those youthful times, family and friends are long gone
And yet here I am in old age,
Living the good life again with new family and friends
Still rocking on, out of time, out mind.
(8/10/25)
Categories:
rechargeable, mountains, nostalgia, retirement, summer,
Form: Narrative
Rechargeable Machines
Rechargeable machines for
holding electrical energy enjoy
listening to
feral wind.
Categories:
rechargeable, humor,
Form: Free verse
At school, they taught us Five.
The Bhagavad-Gita said there are Eleven.
Science people said more than that.
Must find out for ourselves.
The body is our Temple.
Amazing Machine.
Earth and heaven,
We in between.
Self-Rechargeable
self-healing
Works like an antenna.
It is our universe.
Turn the mundane
In to spiritual experience
Experience with your senses.
Focus on the sensations.
Learn to read your body.
Reacts faster than a thought.
It brings you to the now.
What is your body saying?
Hard to read sometimes.
If there was a class, I’ll call it:
“The Art of the Senses
And their biology. “
“The body is the extension of the spirit”
Categories:
rechargeable, body, education, environment, senses,
Form: Free verse
lithium
element of exploitation and mayhem
used in rechargeable batteries
prevention of Alzheimer's disease
spacecraft and nuclear reactors
advanced war weaponry..
They say a trillion dollars worth
is under the blood and burn of Afghanistan
was it ever really about freeing the oppressed
and sowing the seeds of democracy
Xi is licking his lips
Categories:
rechargeable, addiction, green, grief,
Form: Free verse
The poem and poet merge on the page
And the cruel pandemic has its presence
Its nature strikes me with dark words of rage
Death teases humankind unpleasantly
Time's essence is so hard to understand
Mighty nature sweeps down on all nations
Disinfect your minds; sanitize your hands
Dare I make a bleak interpretation?
Masks adorn as they do at carnival
Protecting cute noses and speaking mouths
While the earth appears quite rechargeable
And the pandemic makes its way around
One day, the pandemic will go away
Who knows what nature wishes to convey?
Many people are not afraid to go
Back to work because they need to support
Hungry families with cute kids aglow
However, the pandemic risks to thwart
Dreams of those who invested their savings
Hoping to cash in on all of their work
For now people must resist their cravings
As savings disappear and the beast lurks
The weather, sunny as ever today
The countryside was a bright pleasure
Yet, the pandemic continued to play
Groups of nice youths could not get together
Cruel nature seemed different than before
As though it had a point to underscore
Categories:
rechargeable, angst, anxiety, death, deep,
Form: Sonnet
Part 1
Lithium, Sodium, Potassium
All from Periodic Table Group One
Their reactivity is maximum
And they affect the human condition
Rechargeable batteries use Lithium
As a component in their production
It tries to make mental health optimum
In treating the bipolar condition
Sodium is essential in nutrition
As sodium chloride salt in food for taste
Sodium compounds home products are common
Some are baking soda, soap and toothpaste
Healthy nutrition needs Potassium
A good source of it is the banana
It's used in fireworks which are awesome
And also used in plant fertilizer
Part 2
I can still remember quite vividly
Watching alkali elements' power
It was in a lab class in chemistry
Demonstrated by our class teacher
A piece of sodium placed on water
Began to hiss very furiously
It then sped up under its own power
And ran around as if it was crazy
Potassium was much more violent
It made an extremely loud crackling sound
Then suddenly up into flames it went
And scared the wits out of the class around
Categories:
rechargeable, class, education, firework, food,
Form: Iambic Pentameter
There is a moment in the night, in the shower, in the quiet, that exist in its own temporal bubble
and you are within it, stuck like flies to tape, as if at any moment you will launch away in sporadic patterns of flight.
Instead, you scramble inwardly, madly, in psychic violence.
In spirals derailing consciousness
In which your words must be waking dreams
that decide their own narrative and resonate with some primal inner force.
Use the schism of lucidity as an automaton would
Made only to be the rechargeable champion of fragmentation.
When the fretful pull to uncover reason
Instead brings only idyllic, isomorphic shock,
Flowery discord that uncomfortably enraptures and obfuscates
Can inspire a noble venture into creation
Categories:
rechargeable, art, writing,
Form: Free verse
These power packs come in sizes that are various.
The contraptions they supply energy to are numerous.
In flashlights, hearing aids, calculators, and radios,
among other things are where a battery goes.
Direct current comes in D, C, double and triple A.
There are rechargeable ones, and alkalines you throw away.
Each convenient little dry cell entity,
provides an easy means of electricity.
Batteries give machines portability.
What is now commonplace was once a luxury.
One thing has been noticed by this poet.
Batteries are zapped of their strength before you know it.
They do not seem to have too much energy.
Ones we buy today are of inferior quality.
In a short time, I go back to the store,
and spend a small fortune to get some more.
Categories:
rechargeable, science, work,
Form: Rhyme
ECO FRIENDLY VEHICLES
There are problems with eco-friendly - among others
It is friendly for us but not for our brothers.
A rich man often secretly stands on a beggar -
Gasohol is often mixed from gasoline and cane sugar:
Great for conserving oil but oh-oh the strain
On forests of Brazil, cleared to grow sugar cane.
Solar panels on car-roof soak up sun : no pollution – nothing finer
But the panels are made in smoke-belching factories in China.
Long-life rechargeable batteries for a non-sunny day?
You guessed it, made in sweat-shops in Bangladesh by children who don’t play,
(To keep the cost low and affordable for us)
Why not sell the eco-car and take the eco-bus?
I guess the only really eco-friendly vehicles might be
Wooden wheelbarrows made from trees which died naturally;
Horse-drawn carts, with fertilizer-producing horsepower;
Hot-air balloons with sun-heat (as long as there’s no shower);
And olden-days sailing ships, although England’s forests green
Disappeared to make sure that the olden seas were pristine.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written for Robb A. Kopp's Contest "Eco-friendly Vehicles".
Categories:
rechargeable, philosophy
Form: Didactic