Wow!

I just set up another blog page especially for Poetry! You will find it at:
http://lepagepoetique.blogspot.com

With Love and Confusion,

Bud

Monday, June 15, 2009

I feel the future appraoching... it's cold breath leaves you tired and pensive, not refreshing or regenerative...

Many earthquake swarms lately in and around the San Andreas fault that runs down the state, also Arrowhead and Santa Cruz. Lots of little ones are much better than pent-up reserves releasing all at once, but they are all kind of unnerving... Not sure what's up, but every time I start feeling like this, some kind of shit goes down, and it is rarely much fun. We're overdue, and that doesn't help.

For the last couple of years, my poetry has shifted over to the dark side of the Force. To wit,

Quote...

Surreptitious... 11/14/2006

Furtive glances, one to another
Across a crowded coffee-bar
In Damascus.

Hushed conversations,
Figures lurking quietly
Along the walls,
By the embassy.

Hooded looks,
Hidden words,
Secret nods.

Stolen cars,
Old but still running,
Large sedans,
Mostly.

Large cargo,
Easily driven
by Children
Selected for the
Purpose.

Carpets of lies
Born of ignorance
And ancient hatred
Form the foundation...

Each floor
Is designed for
Death,
Each doorway for
Murder.


To die
In this meaningless
Web of lies
And deceit
Is what they
Live for,
And hatred is the
Only love
They will ever
Know...

Once again,
The brief light,
The great sound
That breaks hearts
And takes breath away...

Once again,
The drama of
Hate and worship,
In pious disguise,
Plays itself out
On the stage
Where the only
Players are
The ragged fools
Destiny and evil
Move around on the
Game board.

Once again,
Murderers kill
And fools cheer
Another useless death
Of one who
Only wanted
Peace...


Wrong time,
Wrong world,
Wrong race,
Wrong book.
Lying tongues,
Flaming egos...
The killers of
History
Beckon to
Another generation of
Fools.

“Come...
Bring me your
Children,
And I will make them
Martyrs to my politics.
I will make you
Stupid with the
Choking passion of
Self-loathing, and
You will not know
The difference.
I will make you
Take on yourselves
This yoke of
Evil
That Hell may
Be populated with you,
As I have commanded
Since the first
Day.”

“Come and know.
Come and die...”


Unquote...

Or,

Quote

The Baker Street Curb

The curb
has drunk
the last part of
the undigested
cocktail
left there by
the previous
reveler...
and
Absorbed the
final
breath of
the murder victim.

It has
comforted
the homeless ones
by being
their hard
pillow,
and been
the playmate of
the orphans
of war and
disease.

It can't be
friendly,
it can't show
compassion to those
who need,
who bleed,
who live and die
in its
cold embrace...

It just limits
the reach of
the gutter
on a cold, windy
street...

Don't expect
too much...
Hell, it's
just a damned
Curb.


Copyright Ó 2005 by Barry D. Morris
All rights reserved

Unquote...

And 1 more...

Quote...

Urban Legend... 200509

The guy with the sexy hair and the pocket comb
The man with the plan
The badass with a pistol in his pocket
Who thinks that makes him god
He isn't… he is…
Only an unknown face in the faceless masses
Who live and die every day in the City
Noone knows them
Noone cares
It's so true the shepherd said
What is truth Pilate asked,
Of the right man at the wrong time
Where did it come from asked the cop
What car ran over you old man
He died with no answer
Everybody knew
It was the aliens again
Kidnapping children and old folks in the dead of night
Noone believes them
They know
It was one of the black Suburbans
Men in Black
Like everything else that doesn't exist here
in this hellish fantasy...
An urban legend

Unquote...

Hope you enjoyed it.

Bud

THIS IS A TEST!!! Got to edit something, not easy to do using these formats...

More later.

Gotta get ready to go to mass at 5:30 PM...

Well, I finally finished the book, "A Brief History of Time" by Professor Steven Hawking. Heavy little read!

Well, in some ways Physics has come a long way, and in some, there is still a long way to go... good book, though!

I started a new job last week, as a delivery driver with CarQuest Auto Parts. I am what is called a "loop driver", which means I drive a route between 4 CQ stores, starting from the superstore in Bakersfield and delivering to Lamont, Arvin and Tehachapi stores. It's a 40-hour 5-day job, and it is nice to be back in a routine work schedule again.

I graduate in June from Bakersfield College with a certificate in the International Building Code. I hope to obtain an engineering position with the County or an Engineering contractor for special deputy inspector work on closely supervised projects. These are special jobs, usually involving structural steel, welding, NDT, concrete, surveying and other things I have done for a lifetime.
These are good paying jobs, usually temporary (5-12 weeks, 48-60 hours/wk), followed by 2-5 weeks off.

Perfect "retirement" job.

My son and his lady have finished their nursery for the expected arrival of a grandson next month (mid-April)! You can see it at http://dave'swindow.blogspot.com.

I have this blog and one other for Poetry at http://bdmonline.blogspot.com.

All for now.

And yet, with all we do know about it, it is very difficult to properly define or understand time. We tend to treat it as if it were a commodity over which we held some form of control, which we, of course, do not. Nor could we ever exert any control over time, unless that were of its perception, and even then, control extends only to our abilities to perceive the passage of time, and not to time itself… no, not at all. Even with computer enhancement, we can only see how time affects things in increasingly smaller units, and even that is an observation of a material’s reaction to time as a stimulus, not any relevant observation based upon any capacity to change time itself.

Time travel is a scientific preoccupation that takes much cranial horsepower that could likely be spent as a wiser investment on more useful pursuits. As an exotic form of science fiction, it is an acceptable form of entertainment. In most possible scenarios, it is just too difficult to achieve a travel event that is not catastrophic. Or, even if it were possible, you could not do anything to change the past that would not disrupt the future! And you know how, whenever faced with a choice, humans unerringly choose the right path first… (NOT!)

Hmmmmm…

OK, because it is not in our nature to leave well enough alone, let’s try to find a way to consider this time business that doesn’t lead to paradox.

TIME… Feb 13, 2008

Isn’t it interesting how much we are preoccupied with time? We live our lives to its beat, our languages are filled with terms indicating some reaction, relation, or expression of it, and we always seem to be trying to make new ways to harness it, measure it, or get more out of it. Like it were a thing, one we could really control or affect in any way, instead of an abstract, perpetual, ongoing, all-encompassing phenomena with all the cogent awareness of a rock, utterly unaware of and unconcerned with anything in the Universe around it. At all.

Philosophers call it “the breath of God”. That colours the Mind: if God hiccoughed, would Galaxies disappear? If He sneezed, would the Universe be destroyed as matter itself was disintegrated in paroxysms of nuclear oscillations?

Time is a force, a condition within which the universe operates. Time has an effect on all matter, for all creation changes over time, but there is no apparent reciprocal action, for nothing found in the natural Universe seems to affect time, except the conditions of radical and illogical environment offered by the Singularity. It is just a universal law, a condition with which everything other than time must cope. Like all natural laws of the Universe, it may be stretched, sped up, slowed down, warped, locally distorted, disturbed, and predicted. However, it cannot be fully stopped, and especially not reversed: to do so could lead to severe and reprehensible paradox. Not even the mighty Singularity can accomplish this, no matter the strength of it. No matter how close to zero advancement it may reach, it will never reach zero. To do so would be catastrophic.

Time

2006 was a roller coaster of a year for me. Some very cool things happened, and some real bad things happened, too.



Let's go to the good stuff. I entered the National Poetry Anthology contest of the International Poetry Society to make it into the 2006 NPA. I entered a poem I had written in 1992 during a trip to Washington, DC in June of that year, called "Capitol Mall, 1992". The poem was about my experiences with homeless people there.



I won! Knock me down with a feather. I had also won a place in the 1987 NPA with a poem I wrote in 1965 in Channel Islands Harbor, Oxnard, CA called "White Bird". Both of these (and some others) are below for your enjoyment. "White Bird" was a spontaneous recited creation.



I received a 13" tall crystal Trophy and a Bronze medallion for display, won a year's free membership to the International Poetry Society, and won the Editor's Choice Award, that got my poems read professionally for a 3-CD Audio Books Set that will go all over the world to children's hospitals and homes for the blind.



I have written Poetry since 1964, and loved it. I am considered to be a professional poet and writer (13 Books of Poetry, and 24 Books). I have several web sites, 2 blog sites, and an Internet Marketing Company.



Check back often, as I will be adding content regularly.



With Best Regards,



Barry D. Morris





Capitol Mall, 1992...

I remember being at the Wall in Washington
On the Mall,
And seeing names I knew from service days,
Casting a pall
Of sadness on my thoughts, much confused,
And sad for all
Those homeless ones in the capital city,
And the gall
Of those who demeaned them... I sat at dinner
One day in fall,
Looking out over a sea of faces, thinking
How tall
And handsome they looked, still dignified...
I recall
Weeping over my little glass of wine and chowder,
When all
My thoughts had no sway
Over a fear in my heart,
That I could fall
From Grace, and be as homeless as they,
With such ease;
With such speed;
With such despair...
And all
I could do was to weep for them
On the Wall
And in the street: They were equally
Beyond the call.

* * * * *



WHITE BIRD (“THE GULL”) July, 1965


Oh! Child of Light,
That I could soar,
Like thee;

O’er the waves
Of Life’s eternal
Sea ...

To hover there,
To stop and Taste
The Wind;

To be thy free
And easy Soul,
Unpenned;

To know thy ways,
And fly thy paths
By Light

Of unknown Stars
Placed there as beacons
In the night

To guide you,
As you wander
On your way;

To never rest,
Until that last
Unending day.

* * * * *



This was a Poetry Magazine humor issue entry, but it was too late for publication last year. Maybe next time...



Some ents & ants Nov 13, 2005
(Or, what went down after the feast...)


Omniscient
Incumbent;
Brilliant,
Opulent
Virulent...
Prudent
Stimulant,
Prescient;
Ambivalent
Ambulant,
Recombinant
Relaxant;
Petulant
Prurient...
Flatulent.

* * * * *



I also write Haiku, the Japanese poetic form that uses a syllable count of 5-7-5. Here are some samples.



"Cherry Blossom Butterflies"



Spring winds blow petals


from a blossoming Cherry Branch;


Oh, Look! Butterflies!



* * * * *


"Dandelion Dancers"




Dandelion dancers,


Seeds scattering everywhere!


Spring Wind is planting.

* * * * *



"Fire-Flies Race the Moon"





Stirring Dying Coals,


Sparks go Spiraling Upward;


Fire-Flies Race the Moon.

* * * * *


OK... Now we get to the part that didn't go so well. On October 27th, 2008 I went to work early as usual, but thought I had heartburn. By afternoon, I was in the WLA Veteran's Hospital emergency room having a heart attack. In prose poetic form, here is the story...



A day almost like any other January, 2007

A touch of heartburn...

Minor gastric upset,

Or so it seemed.

Take an antacid -

Tums or Mylanta?

It soon goes away...

Or perhaps not.

Intuition speaks softly

In a small, quiet voice,

“Take an Aspirin”...

20 minutes

And the feeling is gone.

Why? Vague disquiet,

Thin the blood,

Lose the feeling...

Very different symptoms.

Random pains,

Slight escalations

In frequency and severity

Of the discomfort.

The character

And content of

The pain is changing.

Almost six months

Since the first time,

Now the pain

Is obvious,

Sudden twinge,

Then sullen ache,

Radiating outward,

To the back

And down the arm...

The Aspirin takes longer

To thin and improve

The flow of blood

Through some obvious

Restriction...

One day,

A 2-1/2 hour episode,

A gripping drama,

Like a season premiere


Of a thriller.

But this 24

Is real...

A quick journey

To the VA Hospital

In West LA,

A night in the

Emergency room...

Wired like

A crash test dummy,

I am set for

Max Data if anything

Happens,

Then it does...

3 AM, October 12th 2006,

Heart Attack!

Nitro, dissolving in 4 seconds...

Pain, dissolving in 20 seconds...

(Now, that’s good stuff!)

Changes to medication

That slows the heart,

Thins the blood,

Saves my life.

Follow-up another day,

Stress test,

EKG shows some

Multiple aberrations in

Heartbeat shape and

Duration.

Medication is providing stability,

Giving us time

To pick the best treatment.

Then it’s December 12th:

Another follow-up...

For the 14th, a pre-op

In WLA, for a

Heart Catheterization

On the 15th.

They call it an

Angiogram,

Where they inject

A radio-opaque dye

Into the cardiovascular

System and take

An X-ray to

See any obstructions.

Sure enough,

There are some.

When I awake

On the 16th,

My cardiac surgeon says,

“Happy Birthday, Mr. Morris!

Your 2

Major upper left arteries,

And the right side major vein

Are 80% blocked.

The Carotid in the

Right side of your

Throat is 100%

Blocked, but

Has grown new bypass

Arteries on its own.

Your condition is urgent,

But not emergency,

So we will schedule you

ASAP for a

3-way bypass.

We can use

The 2 mammary arteries

And the Saphenous

Vein for the surgery.”

A 6-7 hour long operation,

They only perform

1 per day,

Unless an emergency arises.



On the 21st,

The Winter Solstice,

They perform the

Life-giving operation

That should extend

My days by

Twenty years.

The next day,

I am on a

Walker, out in the

Hallway, getting my

Exercise.

One week later,

On the 28th,

I am released

To go home.

In another week,

On January 4th,

I return for

A follow-up

Appointment.

There will be more,

One on the 19th...

Cardiologist says,

“What was wrong with you

Is fixed. No need

To return here.”



For now,

The critical time

Is past.

I will rest

And recuperate.



I have been

Given another chance.



I have been

To the edge of

The Abyss,

Looked down into

The Stygian Dark,

Heard the

Gibbering of

Shibboleth in

That eternal night...



But Uri-el, Archangel...

(Daat, the Sefirot who

Stands astride of

The Abyss)

The Boatman over

The River Styx,

The Angel of Death,

My Friend...

Said, “Not now. Not yet.”



And God said,

“You have much yet

To learn, to know

And be known...

Stories, poems, and

Wrongs to right.

Too much

For you to

Come home now.”



So it

Continues...



So much

I still want

To do...

To make music,

Paint pictures,

Write songs

And poems,

Travel,
And see

The faraway Isles,

To fish and hunt

The wild mountains

And woodland lakes and streams...



To care for

My Wife and

Children until

It is time

To go...

Then go

In peace,

With Love


* * * * *

Well, well. A HELL of a lot happened last year... Let's see...

On Oct 27, 2006, I had a heart attack and spent the night in the WLA VA Hospital ER... THAT was a trip! Got all wired up, and obligingly had a mild coronary at 3AM. Got REAMS of data. Meds were changed, and that saved my butt!
Got scheduled for an angiogram for December 15, 2006. Got there, went through the procedure, was in recovery, and this nice, young Doctor came in (Nicolaus Berenthal, MD) and told me I had 3 arteries clogged 80% or more, and my carotid artery (rt side of neck) was 100% occluded (plugged), but a vein system grew around that clog, so it was OK.

On Dec 21st (winter solstice, 2006) I had a 3-way bypass.

I was discharged on Dec 28th, 2006 and Bev took me home to Bakersfield to recuperate.

Got on disability until 3-21-07. Went back to work at Oasis Turf on 3-26-07.

What a mess!

More later...