The world is changing fast
Farmers are trying to manage the virus
This is the beginning
Of the space shuttle caste
Isolate emotions
Like separated Sirius
Space suits
After testing negative
Soccer field triage tents
After testing positive
Landmines aren't the problem
Suicide bombers can't pay the rent
Covid 19 climbed on board
Raising earth's urgent concerns
On this inner journey
As this virus outwardly expands
Billions and trillions of dollars
Government dedicating money
Bolstering a fatally wounded economy
This is the old story
Of the poor little match girl
Destitute and in the frigid street
Some people in Russia
Are wearing masks now
Like they do
In China
And all around
The world
Bring out your dead
Is fast becoming
A common theme
If we didn't need to breathe
This wouldn't be a problem
But our atmosphere
It gives the world
A reason to live
It's hard to imagine
Life under water
Or out in space
It's hard
To stay inside
All of the time
Segregated
In our cells
More than
Half a million
Victims now
Exponential infection
Now
Somebody
Has to poke the tiger
With the stick
But storm clouds
Are gathering
Not respecting
Social distancing
A building wave
Full of droplets
Full of prospects
Full of mutating virus
Regretfully
Our atmosphere
Amputated
In retrospect
Allowed planes to fly
Romance
In the time of pandemic

There's a stiff wind
Blowing again today
Coming from somewhere
Lands end perhaps
Where the edge of the world
Drops off
Into oblivion
There's one mind
Computing again today
Sending out feelers
Earth trends that elapse
Depending
On how the wind blows
Who knows
How this will all end
Cloistered in our cells
Staring out
At the world
Through digital eyes
Through kitchen windows
While the wind blows
While March marches on
Towards some unknown end
Perhaps April will know
Maybe the wind will refrain
From bringing us bad news
Nature forges ahead
With or without
Us
This big fuss
But we must
Be vigilant
Diligence is a key word
This mighty Covid sword
Wading through the masses
Swinging danger
From side to side
Only the few
Will not be harmed
Or wounded
Or dead
Spring has arrived
With a new message
Envisage the world
Without so many
Of us
Forests would thrive
The sea would feel blessed
Nature would nod knowingly
Knowing no fear
Everything forges ahead
Give ear
To the ground
Lend your spirit
But not your body
This is the time
Where we must detach ourselves
Latch the cellar doors
That cell
Where most of us
Will stay
Most of us
Will pray
Most of us
Black and white
But mostly
In the grey

Haiku Saturday - March 28, 2020.


Those mad scientists
Recommending infection
Herd immunity
 

Confusion reeling
Experts are not agreeing
People scratching heads
 

Dark days on our earth
A plague is running rampant
Church bells are ringing


Corona virus
People confined on cruise ships
Personal space lost


Isolation pay
Checking pandemic values
Each routine day now


                           * * * * *

On March 25th
2020
Live streaming webcam
The Best Pancake
Guy
On the edge
Of the street
Outside
Hooters
On Koh Samui
In Thailand
This vendor
Keeps wiping
His face
With a napkin
In his hand
Keeps wiping his brow
With his napkin
Keeps wiping his mouth
With his napkin
Wiping his neck
Wiping his hands
Those hands
Napkin in hand
That hand
Back into his best pancake
Stuff
Moving stuff
Around
With his napkin hand
Wiping his mouth and face
With his napkin
Hands on his phone
Hands in his best pancake
Vending cart
Best Pancake
In Thailand
On the Hooter's wall
A sign
'What Do We Recommend?'
Reads like a good thing
To think about
Recommending
Hand washing
Not touching surfaces
The vendor
His back to the sign
Tosses his napkin
Into his garbage
Pulls his mask
Back on
Hands all over the prep surface
Touching his face
Touching his phone
Touching the prep surface
A few tourists in the street
Not busy really
Covid 19
Has the world reeling
It seems
Nothing is recommended
Not much is commendable

Everything
Is thirsty
It's
A thirsty
World
The land
Is thirsty
Africa and Australia
Are thirsty
People are thirsty
Rivers
Are thirsty
Covid 19
Is thirsty
Everything 
Is hungry
Earth
Is a hungry planet
The land
Is hungry
People are hungry
Species are hungry
Rivers and Oceans
Are hungry
Covid 19
Is hungry
Nature
Will feed us all
God
Will quench our thirst 

 

I cried
When I heard
The news
Trying to imagine
That growing tsunami
About to wash over
Every shore
When this virus
Finally sleeps
We'll wake and see
What's left in store

Revolution
Changing the way things are
This current course adjustment
Chained and obstructed
By the current system
Shackled and always in denial
We'll never be truly free
Those birds that soar and fly so high
There's that moment of clarity
When the atmosphere
Is thicker than reality
When the surreal heart stops
No matter your locality
When the world is churning
No matter your spirituality
I find myself
Wanting to change the world
But  I know
I'm not big enough
Or loud enough
To stow away
All that has been so recklessly unfurled
Perhaps a revolution will grow
Evolution may show us the way
Between black and white and grey
We're on this shady adventure
Like the black plague
Only the rats knew if they should run or stay
Time will see who lives and dies
Nothing much any of us can do
Such is life
Still the moon will set
The sun will rise
But if we don't really care
Don't truly lift the veil
Perhaps the earth will stop
Perhaps the stars will fail

The streets of New York
Are almost empty now
March 20th
The streets of Las Vegas
Are almost empty now
In the year
2020
The streets of London
Are almost empty now
March 20, 2020
When we were still alive
World famous beaches
Are closed now
Everything is changing
Bars and restaurants
Are closed now
Cherry blossom viewing
Is closed in Tokyo
Marching on
Down other empty streets
Everyone closed away now
From crowds and famous beaches
There's a distant corona around the sun
From gathering places and cherry blossoms
There's a ring around the remote moon
From old folk's homes and university halls
From spring break parties and city malls
There's far off Saturn's shining rings and face
Corona virus 19 and galactic space
Running remote rings
Around the coexistent human race

I had traveled
A long ways
Just to see you
In that dream filled haze
I found myself
Floating in a cold sea
I found it hard to think
I was in a foggy daze
Some how the miles
Had chased me
Into a liquid storm
All those reckless styles
Seemed so alien to me
All that dreamy while
All the purchased clouds
Roaring through the purple sky
Appeared to mock me
Still birds sang sweetly
Over Assisi
That marble fount in Italy
No matter how hard I tried
Divinity couldn't see me
Awash in that turbulent sea
That storm raged on
With flagrant vitality
Down in the valley
Where peace once lived
The Devil had reappeared
Talking about resonance
And viral etiquette
Some spatial theory
Concerning nature and romance
Where the traveler
Is the carnal problem
Virile estimates
Where the storm
Is the dream
Together the world
And all the planets
Orbit a violent sun
Love and peace
Are merely human dreams
Nature craves no love it seems
Existence is not meant to be fun
Traveling to see you
I died to see the truth
Ruthless love
Is not peaceful
Pacific relationships are few
Think of specific stars
Let them lull you to sleep
Think of your dear mother's arms
Let her hold you close
Dream about all this earthly pain
Let that pain remind you of your family's house
Where travelers came and went
As storms raged on
Those particular ones
Love and peace sent
Like the melting permafrost
All that reckless energy
Has permeated my soul
Regeneration is what I finally seek
Something from omniscient God
Something to once again make us whole

Early days
I find myself
Standing
Next to an unstable shelf
A black and white pantomime
Exponentially growing
One toe
Away
From the entrance
To purgatory
What a precarious way
Into that vicarious void
I find myself
Looking
Without any help
Away
Searching for remnants
Of legends and dreams
Representing a pilgrimage
From colonies
Of heaven
Within that mystical image
Are prayers
Hounded by difficulties
Every rocky challenge
Centuries of similar layers
This human story
After
Human story
Every cult
Every colour
Whatever shape
We wish
To take
What a cost
This reckoning
What kind of finish
Can there be redemption
Or is everything lost
That particular void is beckoning
Consummate consumption
If we're strong enough
With some convention
Although life is tough
Perhaps we will rise
With some other invention

All these years
Slipped us by
Still I wonder
How and why
But no matter
How much I ponder
No good answer
Comes to mind
Life has changed
Climes and colours
So many times
So many forgotten rhymes
Still I wonder
How did you feel
Why wasn't
How come
Those ten year eras
Life's bloody periods
When dense love
Stayed hidden
Deep inside
Our wandering hearts
For no one
Nary a traveler
Nor an admirer
To ever see
Or deeply touch
All those fears
So many
So much
Inside and out
All those years
Making us twist and shout

 

It's March
Fickle Friday
The thirteenth
Inside
Another parched night
Outside
Winter's flirty lurch
Another cold night in sight
Stepping out my back door
Minus six Celcius
I watch the moon in flight
Listening
A bleak glistening
One forlorn Robin chirps and peeps
Perched in the cold and dark
Yesterday
A small flock flew in
On a warmer trend
Fending for themselves
Managing some life
From bits of barren ground
Then this unfair cold
Cutting like a knife
I wonder what birds will survive
How many bees are still buzzing in their hives
What will endure this March strife
Windigo on the prowl
Such a hungry moon
This flurry of madness won't wait
Indictment by both fool and fowl
Winter's end can't come too soon

Spotted leopard
Losing ground
Biodiversity
What a great loss
Climate change
One death sentence
After another
Science
All that physics
Scientists
Making the world
Go round
A lab
And around
A binding contract
Making money
And around
Virus
Around and around
Crowds
Pandemic
Loud chemistry
Crowning
World recession
Big players
Crowing
Strategic war
Making money
Trillions selling arms
Revamping
World economy
Making zillions
Ill crowds
Chaos milling
Zeus and Osiris
Killing pandemic
Chilling virus

I've cried so many tears
Watching the world evolve
Watching birds fly
My heart is filled with reverence
Seeing the spring come
Seeing flowers bloom
What can we do
When the ice caps melt away
When the emancipated sea washes us away
If the stars are truly real
If black holes do exist
Perhaps the world is round
Perhaps the planets will fall to the ground
But who cares
Who dares to tempt reality
No matter how much we cry
No matter how much we try
Mother Earth has her own ideas
This earth exists
Not because of our fears
Not because humans endear life
But because evolution endures
With each revolution
Around the burning sun
Life exists
Because the universe is one

I wake
Recognizing myself in this massive crowd
I try to find my centre
But the noise is so very loud
I'm distracted
I don't feel good or proud
I'm infected
Neglect and night separated me
Hiding within a mystical cloud
I want to dissect myself
Find out why I can't progress
I need to test myself
To see if I can escape this crazy mess
My arms are a thousand miles long
But I can't ever reach the edge
My vertical self is like a song
Making me leap from a precarious ledge
Faith won't save me
Life tells me I've been wrong
Religion won't have me
Because I live beside a tribal billabong
The sun wants to burn me
The moon yearns to turn me
Into solid rock
But I still balk
Wanting to roar and crow
All my morning exultation
Evening prayers in a neat row
Afternoon heart and a crowing cock
The colour of the blowing wind
Tells me everything I need to know
Still I can't clearly see
No wise old crow or judicious talk

My soul is alluvial
Deposited here by God
All the waves of the ocean
Cannot wash me from this place
I'm faced with daily challenges
Some days are so stormy
I wonder how I survive
But with each sunrise
I am revived
Allowing me to strive
And bear witness
To every earthquake
Every tsunami
If only I am standing in the right place
At the right time
Otherwise
Cosmos swallows us whole
Making us realize
We are but flesh and blood
Bones that cannot stand alone
Water and light
Without those we are lost
Forgotten by time
Like the earth
Without water and light
Becomes but a barren rock
Spinning through macrocosm
Like a forgotten flock of ghostly swans
Never to be seen by anyone
Never to behold beauty
Bounty on every shore
Once more
Heaven draws near
And we become poetry and song
The sky above
With all its warnings
Sounding out coming fears
Just can't be wrong
But still
This is where we belong
This place
Where we all belong

Each word
I write
I try
To touch
Some part
Of you
So when
I tell you
That there
Is trouble
On the planet
All those
Australian bushfires
Summer
So hot
Flying foxes
Fall from
The trees
Eleven thousand
Dead in
One colony
Extreme events
How far
Can extinction
Be
If we
Don't act
Now
We said
This same thing
Fifty years
Ago
But we
Don't act
To curb
Climate change
Sea level
Is rising
Extreme dangers
Tipping points
Brutal nudging
Irreversible change
Major ecosystems
Tipped
Into catastrophe
Catastrophic swells
We can't
Undo
What we
Have done
Insanity
Has gripped
The world
Everything
You know
Is in
Danger
Of
Extinction
A methane
Storm
Urgency dictates
But we don't
Learn
For we
Are only
Human
What version
Of reality
Do you
Want

Your eyes

Your smile

They tell me everything

Your tears

Your fears

Draw all the lines I need to see

Across great deserts

Across vast oceans

All those steps taken together

All that beauty we have dreamt

Sometimes I think it is mysticism

But my heart tells me it is sacred

Where ever we end up

How ever God finds us

When God finally hears us

Where ever we finally land

Perhaps we'll finally walk

Peacefully together

Hand in hand

Don't talk about lychee nuts
Don't speak about chicken wings
Those things have been my downfall
Why was I so weak
Amongst those other sinful things
If the moon came down to earth
It would follow me
Haunt me til the day I die

Let me alone
Don't expect me to be true
I will always let you down
For I have fallen to the ground
Repenting because of pilfered lychee nuts 
Those stolen chicken wings
My heart is heavy
When I am reminded about those things

I feel ashamed that I've been such a failure
Chewing on someone else's lychee nut
For devouring some other person's chicken wing
Amongst so many other things
If the stars fell down to earth
They would find me
I am sure
Burn me to the bone
Self-immolation would be of no concern
Those giant orbs of cosmic energy
Would incinerate my wanting soul

If God hears these rumours
About my filth and transgressions
He would order a hitman
To find me and kill me
For all those evil moments
When I pilfered someone else's lychee nut
When I not so secretly swiped
Someone else's chicken wing
Self destruction
Has always been one of those things
In my bag of possibilities

I don't rely on myself
I've found I can't be trusted
I am not true
I've choked on lychee nuts
And chicken wings
They've brought me down
Down and down
To this base place
Where lies can't live
Where secrets can't exist
Because I wear my guilt
Upon my frayed imperfect sleeve
For I am imperfect
In every way

But before I leave
This earthly life
Before I close my eyes
One last time
I must admit my guilt
I must tell you how I've felt
Before God finds me
And brings me to my knees
Kneeling here grieving
While the world around me burns
Before I forever leave

I once asked a priest

If he fed the poor

He turned away

And I said no more

If the sea can't feed us

If cyclones and hurricanes continually blow

If the earth can no longer support us

Where will we go?