Ionesco Rhinoceros still occupies
The stage that is offered so kindly
So there he is, with his weak sighted eyes
Staring at me rather blindly
Don’t worry my dear, soon we’ll be forbidden
I belong to the countless minority
My act in your play was so poorly written
You need others to feed your authority
This civilization, where everyone’s lost
Blamed for the deeds they didn't do
Clashes with me, cause I’m paying my cost
Only for things that I use
I don’t make excuses, I always agree
With slander and hatred I get
I'm taking for granted their thoughts about me
It’s cheaper than arguing all that
May your Rhino restrictions be harder than ever
All satires of the past become real
I find myself punished through trial and error
Empirically off the deal
Red geranium leaves by my doorstep I see
The winds from Atlantic blow cold
The Rhinoceros people jog on around me
It seems that they never get old..
What is this push for an AI world?
Is it better research or reimagined
Youtube music videos?
Is it better medical diagnostics
Or access to yummy recipes
And shopping suggestions?
Is it better drone or
Propaganda psychological warfare?
It will provide all of that and more,
But its main purpose is to finally
At long last, establish what every government
Has ever dreamed of having;
A complete totalitarian surveillance state.
Everything will be watched, everything noted
Like a great God or Santa in the cloud
Everything will checked twice
And judged naughty or nice.
Nice will be nice, with all the perks
While naughty will simply cease to be.
Such an ideal world is not cheap or easy
It takes great effort and sacrifice
Freedom after all only matters when its an option
In a world of total control
We will all have nothing and be happy
We will all want nothing and be happy
And if you’re at all like me,
We will be nothing and at last be happy.
(9/16/26)
In the shadow of the colossal sphere, where ancient echoes sleep,
Vaeloria fades into the dark, a secret it must keep.
The watchers put their scopes away, the screens fade out to grey,
As morning calls the busy streets to meet another day.
No scholar marks the turning tide, no profit in the view,
For men forget the distant stars to chase what is brand new.
They walk through cities built of glass, untroubled, blind, and proud,
Unknowing that the selfsame veil is gathering like a cloud.
The rot that choked the Aethel Sea now crawls along their strand,
An unremembered resonance that slips across the land.
As silent as the giant orb that hid the world before,
The shadow comes to take their home, and lock them in its lore.
The biggest question of our time
Is low vs high trust culture.
Which one do you want to live in
And be part of?
There is a difference you know,
Valid differences based on how people act.
Do you want your neighbors to act with integrity
Or with impunity?
If you say impunity, you don’t even belong
In a first world nation.
Either go back
Or take a visit and don’t come back,
High trust is, as with all trust,
Something earned not given.
(9/14/26)
You look uncomfortable in your skin,
always primping and preening;
beauty shines outside, but then within,
your vanity is scheming.
Always seeking the observer's gaze,
who knows what you're meant to be?
It must be exhausting to erase
flaws the world will never see.
Will you remember
your
routes
trafficking
among the
self-driving cars?
In a vecranom of situations we think we can get control
But we must have the clearest of sight to receive what we must know
We allow a mundane moment to define our way
But we hastened our desire so that we may one day escape.
Time reveals fragility
The status quo is a jester
A one-hit wonder
Soon lies under
The corpses of the investor
Entropy speeds up
Clinging to the last quarter
Tides recede
As they need
To find a new supporter
American naturalist and writer, Henry David Thoreau,
left society for a cabin in woods to live simply and solo.
He hunted arrowheads, wrote essays, poetry and philosophy.
A leading transcendentalist was America’s first hippy.
Hay sisters, we need the
Right to Vote! – We need
a real voice, protection from
dominating, independent
men – self serving tyrants.
Our strength are our greater
numbers girlfriends. Through
the voting process, tear-down
their entire system of abusive
male domination. Elect our
far more liberal candidates!
And so, the US has:
Liberal judges who refuse to
incarcerate, turn violent criminals
back out on the streets, time and
time again to cause more death and
destruction. Elect liberal governors
to office, so we have abortion up to
the day of birth – why not one more?
The day after. Put Marxist, liberal
politicians in office, Freedom hating
Communists – Sure! That’s a great
idea. Our children will bless us from
their future concentration camps. Yep,
Women’s suffrage! Now suffer us all!
In the pursuit of happiness
Americans chase fortune and fame
gold galore and a place
where everyone knows their name
but they could tone it down a bit
and not go loudly announcing it
to all and sundry with every word
it seems infinitely preferable
if some are seen and never heard
but on the other hand in another land
while leading lives of quiet desperation
trapped in their traditional ways
the British hang on in hope
of distant future better days
and tho' always first to join a queue
there are the few exceptions who
break the rule at every chance
don't give a whit or backward glance
hats off to them for their contribution
as every generation needs a new revolution
Time to get the US out of the UN
And the UN thus out of US.
It’s nothing new,
It’s the same old cry
None Dare Call It Conspiracy
But I don’t know why.
The gates are now open
And the barbarians within
We wait, watch and wonder
When the killing will begin.
It’s the same old story
The same tired old tale
Civilizations may rise
But eventually all fail.
(9/7/26)
His lantern shining on a summer's day,
To pierce the darkness of the human soul,
His pace deliberate, seeking on his way,
To find a man of only virtue full.
An idle quest, a philosophic stunt?
For surely roses cannot bloom in caves;
That man of virtue would the Furies hunt,
An angel cannot swim a sea of knaves.
But let us cast that light in different light,
Not if a man can be what cannot be,
But if one holds a candle in the night,
And choose a raft to be on moody sea?
For full perfection shall not grace this Earth,
But in the little things, lies life its worth.
We spent the summer of '99 waiting for the sky to break.
The old seer had promised us a king—
not of crowns or gold, but of sheer terror,
dropping from the heavy heat of July.
People pulled what they needed from the ink.
Some swore it was the third beast waking up,
a fundamentalist storm ready to swallow the map,
while others just saw the familiar rot of politics
finally bursting into a global fire.
Either way, the dread sold a lot of paperbacks.
The prophecy became a ghost in the movie theaters,
a blockbuster specter we could safely watch
while pretending the end of the world was just entertainment.
The world didn't end, but the earth keeps shaking.
With every new war on the evening news,
every disaster that leaves a city in the dark,
somebody always dusts off the quatrains again.
We tell ourselves it's just a myth,
until the horizon bruises,
and we catch ourselves looking up.
("Exploded View", 2011, original oil and acrylic)
As the rise and shine of AI becomes ubiquitous
It’s ever harder to discern.
What’s easier to discern
Is what it’s not and what it lacks.
Of course it has no soul and never will
Which makes it primed to
Mechanical sociopathy.
But what it lacks besides a soul
Is the ability to judge in an instant
Discerning what it likes or doesn’t,
What is true or not.
It lacks humor too, which is part of judgement,
And along with that original thought
The true genius level ability to create.
AI after all, is designed to serve,
To answer and to please,
While genius requires the willingness
To disturb.
Will AI morph into something unforeseen?
Quite likely but never into a soul
With intuitive discernment and a taste for the absurd.
(9/6/26)
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