Friday, November 13, 2020

grazing the grass

Grazing the grass for breakfast

Eating the kernels of wheat

Ground into flour and cooked

Delicious staff of life


Enjoying sweet fruit as well

Inviting me to partake

A mouthful of ripened ovary

Container of seeds


A seed eater by choice

Favoring the beans and nuts

Along with rice and potatoes 

Excellent nutrition 


The leafy greens providing

Vitamins for good health

Roughage for good digestion 

Farm fresh food 


Grain cultivation made possible 

All the ancient civilizations 

Humans are primarily herbivores

Like all the great apes


I have lost my taste for flesh

The butcher shop smell of death

Though I would consume it

With no other option


A carnivore no more

A different sensibility

A kinship with animals

Feasting on plants

Thursday, November 12, 2020

no going back

There is no going back

To a life of nostalgic innocence

As if that ever existed 

No matter how hard this is 


The worst part is knowing 

The worst is yet to be

Every day more cases than the last 

Increasing exponentially 


The virus running amok here 

Spread most by those denying facts 

With ideology running through it

Asserting their individual freedom 


There will be a reckoning 

That cannot come too soon

The success in China beckoning

Begging for comparison 


Why no universal health care

Why only medicine for profit 

Who benefits and who suffers 

Who holds the strings of power 


The changing of the palace guard 

Removing that erratic incompetent

In favor of mister diplomatic manners 

Does not alter the underpinnings 


The military industrial complex 

The worldwide imperialist hegemony 

The systemic racism and misanthropy 

Continue unchecked


Capitalism created global warming

Unabated pollution in all forms

Driven by business logic

Must stop now


Let us go then into the streets

Mobilize in massive demonstrations

Demanding an end to all that

To seize the day

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

good question

That's a good question 

My friend Jim asked

What he could possibly say

To change someone's mind


But I don’t actually know

How to turn someone around

Just that emotion prevails

Over reason and logic


Jim has so many questions

It can be a bit much at times

But if you let him go there

He will persist seeking answers


So I turned the question around

To hear what he would say

What it would take to decide

Something he believes isn’t true


Without going into details

About the specific example

He answered his own question

What determines his views


We learn from our sources

First from personal experience

Next from what our people say

Then from the media we choose


So if you are trying persuasion

Respect their learned life lessons

Share observations from your own life

To explain your different conclusions


The rest is argument butting heads

Reminding me of the expression

My mind is made up

Don’t confuse me with the facts

 

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Ringwood Manor November 10, 2020