Blank Verse Sonnet #1

The desert does not want this ugly road
and so she sings the wind with low sad songs
to conjure snakes of sand to doom with dunes
that black scar of commerce on her skin.
She wages wars with ploughs and pay loaders,
the diligence of greed and lust for trade,
or restless sojourners who leave behind
the very thing they seek—unknown to them;
she wants this not! And she would have it gone!
For vast and lonely would this desert be—
a place for prophets and for scorpions;
for visions, dreams, and wonders—and for stars
to shine in this last remnant of the night
away from all our artificial light.

I'll be going home someday

I’m feeling a tad bit homesick this week. I’m going on a year and a half of working here. In that time I have seen deserts, and Arabs, mountains and oceans, observed a strange mix of ultramodern opulence intermixed with poverty and traditional life, I have watched Indian and Pakistani workers marching with their little aluminum lunch pails, to work long days on the villas or the hundreds of new sky-scrapers being built in this city that seems to be rising like magic along the coast of the Arabian Gulf as if by the hand clap of a great Djinni. I’ve driven in a thousand taxies, ridden on cramped busses crowded with sweaty workers who seem to be used to body odor that literally makes my eyes sting, I’ve biked the Cornish with friends, spent the night on the dunes, and eaten the brain of a goat with my bare hands. I have watched, I have listened, I have smelled, I have touched, I have tasted—all that comes to me in this place—receptive to what this land has to teach me. Sometimes, (I’m crazy—you know this about me) I talk to the plants, touch them, especially the palm trees, “Who and what are you? Are you indigenous or were you introduced to this land like me? Heaven bless you and make you fruitful, my friend.” I know the names of the birds and trees in the American Midwest, but it has been hard to learn the trees and birds here. The hood hood, I discovered early on, and the white-cheeked bolbow, the ibis, the rose-ringed parakeet and the ever present mynah bird. The trees I have had less luck with, the date palm, of course, fig trees, the sidar trees the eucalyptus (or gum tree as the Australians apparently call them) But there are many more that I don’t know yet.
All of this is an attempt to find a place, to know the land and the people, but I am still a stranger here. A visitor. I don’t know how long I will be here. Unemployment in Michigan is over eleven percent and at about eight percent over-all in the US. Not a good time to look for jobs where I live—or used to live. So, for the time being, I’m settled and working, and making friends that I have to keep at a certain distance because they will leave eventually. Joseph is back in Kenya, Keveen in France (when he’s not on adventures) Who knows where Samir my old driver is, Kyle went back to Texas, Melanie is in Istanbul with her sister Rene. Everyone I know is a visitor here, like me, here and gone. But isn’t that like life? The cycles of relationships are a bit shorter, but isn’t it like life? This constant stream of people who come into our lives and then depart, isn’t that like life? Life is a constant fluctuation between the joy of knowing and loving, but the grief and loss that goes with it eventually. Going home is a dream of heaven. I don’t want golden streets or riches untold in some sweet paradise, I just want to be with those I love and miss.

Obliati Osimati

I can’t tell if I’m a tenor or a tin ear, but I’d never let that stop me from trying to sing the song that is in the heart to sing. Obliati Osimati is what C. S. Lewis might have referred to as “damnably bad Latin.” But you all know what it means. If not, listen and think a while. I’ve taught enough ESL now to know that 90% of any language is in the paralanguage. Please excuse the imitatio Philipenisis Glassenisis but I love Philip Glass who is one of a few modern/post-modern composers that I do like. In-spite of the mood-altering sadness you might pick up, I would prefer you think of it as a lullaby, but a lullaby that makes you think, perhaps, about what you do, have done with your life.

Willow's Dance

I'm taking a break from the Ghost in the Cloud series to do something really different. This is from a poem I published earlier on my blog called, "Willow's Dance." I thought it would make a really nice animated feature, so I tried my hand at animation. I can't say that I am great at it, and the Window's Paint Program does have its limitations for creating animation, but I managed to get a few good moments of animation for a beginner. You will have to go back a month or two to find the poem if you want the words.

The Ghost in the Cloud Chapter 4: Trials

In this chapter of my audio series, The Ghost in the Cloud, we revisit Randall, the character from chapter one, who tried to upload the mind and consciousness of his friend and mentor Jack Rickerts into cyberspace in a misguided attempt to live forever. The process of this failed attempt resulted not only in the creation of a new being existing in “the cloud”, but also in the death of Rickerts.

The Ghost in the Cloud Chapter 3: Polyexistence

This is the third chapter of my audio science fiction story about a cyberspace being called Jack, who is trying to understand that part of reality which only humans can see, but which they have blocked from their conscious minds by their empirical belief system. With the help of a child by the name of Angelina, Jack attempts to study that strange world through her eyes by the aid of nanocells that he has implanted in her to broadcast to him those things which she (unknown to herself) is able to see. The nanocells, however have begun to restructure and enhance Angelina's neural network making her a savant to the dismay of her mother who is striving for normality after the disappearance of her husband, Rabbit.

The Ghost in the Cloud Chapter 2: The Doll's House

Wake

When you wake you disturb
the placid waters that
want sleep—that will return
to rest once you have passed
trouble them all the same
and wake while you have life