Clarion Blues
Soft gentle beauty leaning against the window
Fostering a belief that loneliness is loveliness
what is good must start with pain
A perfect state
of perfect mind.
Cool pleasant sand
Lies in a land unknown
play and fun is wasted time
and idle are the satisfied.
A self-constructed sterilized cell for working days
And nights towards a goal that cannot be achieved.
the rain and sun are both the same.
Is this a way of life?
-- zumwalt (1974)
poet
she stabs her way into recognition
one victim at a time
receiving little pleasure in the crime
— zumwalt 1998
It is with mixed feelings, and pretty intense regret, that I am aggressively scaling back on the publishing of Zumwalt poems on this site. As Zumwalt’s longtime co-editor, I cannot ignore the minimal traffic on this site and the numerous options available for me to submit some of Zumwalt’s previously unpublished poems to diverse and respected publications which will provide Zumwalt an audience of thousands or even tens of thousands of readers. I owe this to my friend Zumwalt.
When I was a data architect, I was fortunate to have had several of my articles on Data Warehousing published in Data Management Review. I know the personal joy of seeing one’s own work published in a respected periodical. Zumwalt has been deprived of this opportunity since the unfortunate, but predictable, cessation of the GHLM newsletter, which had contracted with him for exclusive publication rights. He insists that publication of his work is not important and even scoffs at its future likelihood. I suspect this is not so on either count.
In order to keep this blog active, I will continue to publish anything Zumwalt sends me exclusively targeted for this blog — provided that I cannot persuade him to allow me to forward such material on to potential publishers. I will also continue to author posts like “Fifty Year Friday”, which showcases a combination of my flawed writing against reminiscences of some of the great music of fifty years ago. I wish I had time to write more — I gave up Century Sunday, Seventy Year Saturday and other features due to time constraints; I wish I could write better — I gave that up a long time ago — I write for the joy of writing and I am fine with one reader or ten, ten being about the maximum audience I have for any given post.
But as typical with my ruminations, I have veered off-track, at the expense at both my message and your patience.
My plan is this: Fill up some of the empty blog-time by engaging a well-respected, now-retired former literary critic (I will say no more out of respect to protect this individual’s identity, which is this person’s wish.) He has indicated he will record a short lecture for each previously published Zumwalt poem on zumpoems.com. I will use a software app I have to transcribe each lecture and post it here. Not sure when he will deliver the first lecture, but he is very knowledgeable on both poetry and all of the Zumwalt poems on this site and all the Zumwalt poems that have been previously published in the GHLM newsletter and the original GHLM (which, acronym, dear reader, simply stands for Good Humor Literary Magazine) — and, I believe, as I finish this long-winded, poorly written sentence, is something he can do easily off-the-cuff, with minimal time and preparation required. I have seen him lecture live on impromptu-requested topics, and it is quite something to have witnessed.
Until then, you continue as my distantly cherished and greatly appreciated friend, so please return so we can meet again.
Washington’s Post
This government,
the offspring of our own choice,
uninfluenced and unawed,
the support of your tranquility at home,
your peace abroad,
of that very liberty
which you so highly prize,
(Experience in my own eyes)
you have in a common cause fought and triumphed together,
will not exercise more charity in deciding on the opinions,
and actions of one another.
One of the most baneful foes of republican government,
brought to the verge of dissolution due to diversity of Sentiments.
Lifted them to unjust dominion,
will, if there is not a change in the system,
be our downfall as a Nation.
With the real design to direct, control,
counteract, or awe,
to confine each member of the society
within the limits prescribed by the laws,
The powers of the Executive
of the United States are more definite,
and better understood,
to guard
the public good.
— George Washington (edited by zumwalt)
zumwalt’s notes:
Phrases from first and fourth stanzas are from Farewell Address (1796).
Phrases from second stanza are from Farewell Address and Letter to 1792 Alexander Hamilton.
Phrases from third stanza from a letter written in 1783.
Phrases from fifth stanza is from a letter written in 1794.
Sixth and final stanza is from the 1790 Address to Congress.
This poem was awarded third place (bronze) in a 2025 allpoetry.com contest: https://allpoetry.com/contest/2879139–Paid-members–Win–50:-Found-Poem
hope takes a back seat to Fate
this bus,
the first and last bus
of the bus stop
where I stop
to catch the bus.
you know it will be allright
it needs to be, right?
being is an extension of
what is about to exist,
of course,
for the best.
a window —
well,
didn’t get one.
the back window?
sure,
except,
why watch what has gone by?
what will be —
ah,
that will be good —
better than now,
passing on the left anything
gone on before.
Fate…
ignores chipper hope
and the constant chattering
but does not look down
on innocent chance.
Fate!
muses not
on circumstances
nor takes
viewpoints or preferred destinations
into consideration.
for Fate
it’s just a steady job.
nothing to get so
serious about
and sooner or later,
all the annoying nattering
will stop
and hope will get off,
long gone before
the end of the line.
– zumwalt (1998)
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)
thick trees engulf the hidden spell;
soft streams collide on risen ground;
so much, so fast, so far we go —
then leave the remnants of the trampled dust.
–Zumwalt (2011)
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)
formaldehydration
flickering, fluttering inauspicious celestial butterfly
recklessly spatters dribbling drips of darkened burgundy
over overtaken over-conscientious Cal Poly Pomona Green.
diamanté dimensions collide with an autumn-autumn whisper
merging the flap-flap-flap fanlight florescence with a soft gentle tap
shamefully simmering shimmy-round-sizzling shake-down capabilities.
it seems that this high-speed, high-tech, high-result diet
has made me high-strung;
it streams images in passing of over-charged electrons and fairy-tale fancies
faster than the past registers future impressions of near-miss impacts.
I know that time is slow.
It starts off when I do
but finishes long after I am done.
I know truth is slippery.
It hides in the shadows of possibilities
and then comes out for a quick encore before the opening curtain.
imagination weds speed-dating
timed-release capsules
to produce a solid business case
for planetary intimidation
but
when references are required
habitually-blinking, surreptitiously-slinking imagination sneaks away
like
an overwhelmed waiter serving final meals
to a condemned food-critiquing population
devouring
the last bounty of resources one deja-vu moment
before
the impending
never-ever-ever-ending
bright-light-headlight-headache supernova drought.
-zumwalt 2011
The habit of indirection
crouched like an audio-animatronic lion
on the destination end of a high hurdle
we find civilius misdirectus
the final evolution of a long chain of
isolated inattentivenesses
it feeds on marathon runners, steeple chasers
and pole vaulters
to fill the intervals
between its favorite meal
off the blocks
directed between lines that narrow into the distance
starts the one
that has carefully measured every step beforehand
no decisions to make on direction, distance or depth
no choices to meet, no chance;
no sudden unexpected moments of chasing the effervescent sparkle
with the distant dream so clearly in the sights
it doesn’t seem like a menace
chips and high tech paper-mâché
waiting patiently at the last of so many carefully counted hurdles
and it doesn’t much move
but civilius midirectus
was designed with one purpose
not to entertain
or even to be the king
but simply
and efficiently
with no remorse
(except where indicated by legal counsel)
to open its volumnous jaws
and direct a glimmer of personal existence
into a very dark stomach of
impersonal
but carefully audited
profit and loss statements
— Zumwalt (04/1998)
