Another Zumwalt quote
When art imitates life by eating and reproducing, we are in trouble.
– Zumwalt.
Archive for the ‘2016’ Category
Unicosm
Unicosm
some like to read the railroad tracks
reflect on journeys past
some gaze at the sky
anticipate upcoming cloud formations
Some discuss running away
what chases them
what ensnares them in place
Each creates their own universes
Storing them up
Or discarding them in the dumpster with scattered package wrapping and useless electronics
— Zumwalt (2016)
Strangely struggling in Shangri-La
Strangely struggling in Shangri-La
Shaken and stirred beneath the slime
I culpably allow darkening tentacles to disperse my many parts:
the little wisps of attention,
sinister and poisonous,
bend misty claws.
This night keeps extending,
strikingly silent under the depths,
invoking quaking hands above the clouds.
Such despair! The future is vanishing
straddling the light —
the next race waiting
to which such dreams
withering victims
aspire.
-Zumwalt (2016)
nevermore (original version)
nevermore
Missing the dead, more than, I suspect, they miss me, I somberly reflect:
the most recent, smell terribly,
and the long departed are more like fallow soil than fellow souls;
I don’t want them to stagger and stumble like the living dead
or communicate to me while their face parts fall off;
I want to be around them like when they were at their best.
And so I go to memory,
that slippery, somewhat unscrupulous, disobedient vagabond
that tells the same stories and strays from the truth far too often —
each torturous tangle with memory takes something away
and provides nothing new —
this is no consolation for so many losses,
just needless punishment for keeping company with the only companion that cannot die
but only deteriorate.
— Zumwalt (2016)
(This is the original version, now verified as final version.)
nevermore
nevermore
Missing the dead, more than, I suspect, they miss me, I somberly reflect:
the most recent, smell terribly,
and the long departed are more like fallow soil than fellow souls;
I don’t want them to stagger and stumble like the living dead
or communicate to me while their face parts fall off;
I want to be around them like when they were at their best.
And so I go to memory,
that slippery, somewhat unscrupulous, disobedient vagabond
that tells the same stories and strays from the truth far too often —
each torturous tangle with memory takes something away
and provides nothing new —
this is no consolation for so many losses,
just needless punishment for keeping company with the only companion that cannot die
but only deteriorate,
repeatedly
leaving me with less,
never more,
than that which
actually
once
was.
— Zumwalt (2016)
Eartheia
Eartheia
Contented, and taking the path I think less traveled,
And you, unannounced, hit with full force, head on:
Contact unlike anything anywhere in my neighborhood;
And here we are, seemingly billions of years later,
Still intertwined and yet separated:
You out there in the distance,
Sometimes fully seen, sometimes dark, sometimes missing
but always reoccurring,
and, as I view you, I automatically, and of necessity, reflect on your view of me.
-Zumwalt (2016)
The Grand Panjandram
The Grand Panjandram
In dark draped light, they set the stage with positively pessimistic preposterous pronouncements:
open-ended, close-minded —
an onslaught of oozing, slimy, backbiting, backstabbing, bamboozling, bath-bubble babble.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers but where the heck is the peck that Peter Piper picked?
Blame the government! Blame the moderators! Blame the other politicians!
Blame the prosperous! Blame the lazy, liberal-influenced, moral-obliterating, freeloading nameless discontents! Blame blame, but oh, so blamelessly….
Our media plays politics, shamelessly positioned cross-legged on the tracks of the central station throwing rocks at the podiums of the office seekers and office sitters who madly craft the nightly news peering over the simmering cauldron as they add tortoise ears and bat eyes to their brew.
They know nothing is knowable; the perception of reality is reality: reality is only what is perceived.
I had a little nut-tree, nothing it would bear, but nuts are scattered everywhere along with rampant fear. Predictably, my mind wanders until there is no more silliness to hear while my unsuspecting stomach growls as the choruses of the shameless masses cheer.
I know reality.
It is that thinner-than-thread string that connects one thought to another and one moment to the next.
I know consequences. These are things that happen in direct proportion to lack of diligence.
The end follows the beginning; but also sets up every new beginning. Each possibility is the result of each result.
I will set aside my expectations — of what reality should be — to go along with the ride. It will ultimately lead to the next ride and at some point there will be a chance to get off, walk away and look back at the vast, almost infinite, devastation.
— Zumwalt (2016)
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