they can't slip one past me
intellectuals, smarty-pantses
I know what my eyes can see
it's ninth grade geometry
good thing pilots and sailors know
the top of the earth is flat
I'm not sure about the bottom
where the roots hang through
on top, there's a hemisphere
that's where you see the sun and moon
why don't they bump?
only God knows
9th grade geometry works on a flat surface
Horace Greeley said it
go west like Magellan
circumnavigate the world
you end up in the same place
you avoid the edge
where monsters be
you've gone in a wide circle
I live in the center of the world
and cut a smaller circle
only thing I haven't figured out
what keeps the ocean water
from draining off the edge?
The opposite of life
is death
The polar opposite of eternal health
is terminal disease,
with unease perhaps lying/truthing
in-between timelessness
and untimely demise
So too,
my opposite of steady compassion
may be your unsettling dispassion
Elation v deflation
of all these oppositional answers above
as clear
as unclear appositional questings
below.
What is my opposite of suicide?
Self promotion?
Ego inflation?
Having all my consuming needs
fully answered?
Or
maybe some uneasy questing
timeless mind
and spacious body
in-between healthy Now
And death-defying
death-denying
death-defining
death-despairing
death-despoiling
AnthroLove Here
Remains part of EarthLife There
whenever tomorrow comes
Now?
As Me curiously questioning
feels like our lonelier half
of We not yet
finally answering?
What could appositionally rebalance
death's final answering Earth-climate
and life's open questioning Anthro-culture?
What is the opposite of lively ruminations
and deadly ideations?
What lies contentious truths contenting,
In-between EarthBody's discommunication
desecrating death
and AnthroMind's sacred communion life?
Whereas and wherefore hence and hereafter
An idle balloon sits high in the rafters
It’s hard to decide which one is dafter
The one who just bought it or the “arts” crafter
the media just primps and prunes
while she stumbles in the ruins
rejoicing in the things she brings
while dancing on those puppet strings
he sees a future glowing bright
says he’s the one to make it right
that he will wage an endless fight
if the handcuffs aren’t too tight
The rainbow, seems it’s met its due
All they see is red and blue
Run their mouths, fuel their planes
Call each other nasty names
And we, poor saps, will cast our votes
Based on their nasty, feral quotes
In hopes whoever gets the nod
Will not bring back the firing squad
If fate opposed is useless, what great need
is there to challenge dark despair's great power
when spirit dies, and soul, mind, body bleed,
as hope wilts like a melancholic flower?
When lungs give way, and breath begins to drown,
should life and existence now become jointless,
so glory and fame (marks of the renown
that laud their pride) be futile, vain, and pointless?
But sculpting songs transforms life's dreadful deluge,
as odes calm a tempestuous, mental clime,
like a moored buoy that delivers refuge
through this apocalyptic end of time.
So, brooding minds therefore must all beware,
lest deep truths lead to bottomless despair!
On my way to my fitness hour
I met a crow flying with a flower.
In his beak he cradled the stem,
From his talons yellow petals came.
Shiny buttons, chromium whistles,
Collections of many lost treasures,
His nest a museum lacking one thing…
For his royal pleasures, a golden crown.
RUMINATIONS
sentiment
glimmer
in
primitive
gatherings
approach
then
turn
desert
&continue
to decay
&rot
soon forgotten
reposing
in
a breadth
of fine mesh
piled high
with
translucent
half-visions
beyond
the quaint
mottled
machinations
In the story
You're a loose thread
Slipping through a lie
Slicing through a tattered fringe
Twisting on a line
A shred of proof
In a tangled ruse
Stripped of the sublime
A cobweb with a thousand folds
Plying for my time
Tearing through paper truths
To occupy my mind
In the sequel you're exposed
On the threshold of a rising
Wrinkling like a crescent moon
On the edge of my horizon
Stretching like a shadow
Drawn out by the night
You crouched like a second thought
Hiding from the light
Written by © Raven Drake
Why are the sea gulls shopping here, if not
for "White Stag, "No Boundaries." or "Faded Glory?"
Is there some other story? Coffee, Tea or You,
or just practicing beach and gray-sky calls
over concrete, carts, and Handicapped Blue?
This turf is for blackbirds of the piercing cry, haughty
strut and beady stare. It's not for you to straddle
halogen in your evening wear of dove-gray, black
tie in this car-lot of no swells, no breakers.
What lures you displaced gracefuls-- calls you
from rides on a rogue wind, pushing lace-topped
tides to stock minnow meals in pellucid sloughs?
You've paid your dues, and dour land birds
are the parking lot denizens. Surely you harbor
a peculiar appetite for hors d'oeuvres that do not
swim or paddle, though you buzz pedestrians
on stony reaches as when dive-bombing
the deep, or cruising the beaches.
For whatever draws you to the superstore,
super birds, I pray you reap Neptune's
pardon as you vie for the rail over the holy grail
of the Wal-Mart sign, where no whitefish,
black fish, shrimp or snail, no fiddler crab
scuttles for safety. And may our God absolve
us our sins of the past-- our ever advancing
invasion of concrete, steel, and glass.
Druidic Ruminations (still dancing shadows)
Deceptively feminine mannerisms
Lures to wile the unwary
Long haired unread horsemen
Spending Summer into Fall
Reciting words in rhythmic fashion
Inciting feelings of quick passion
From a chieftain and a druid unforgotten
Dead and living in them all
Poetry older than writing to initiates inviting
To veterans of living simple need
Word for word and each symbolic
Of a Way and with a reason seeming right
There’s a time to stand and fight
Precious time spent teaching love is kind
To approach the coming night
But living without reason from season into season
Is not a way remembered so we die alike dismembered
Rotten and forgotten out of sight and out of mind
Justice swings a sword unswerving we are all of us deserving
Honor is the shield deflecting shining and reflecting
The joy of life for anyone to find
And hold if they be bold for though the way is old
It is yet well trodden path to sunset sea
Ever beckon wondrous waves of feeling
And songbirds yet warble it in sylvan woods
To they who listen well as they spend their
Precious time
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