Friday Nite Poetry: From The Ant Hill To Olympus

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This blueprint of what La Belle would have loo...

This blueprint of what La Belle would have looked like was created in the 20th century, after excavation. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Welcome back, gentle readers, sorry there has not been a Friday Nite Poetry in a couple of weeks. Hardware problems have been vexing me and they are hopefully solved for some little while. You all already now about my fundraiser, and I will say no more about that besides the quick reminder.

What I will speak of is how easy it is to forget how truly amazing we are as a species. We have walked the moon, cured diseases, and for all the horror we have visited on each other, we have often raised each other up as well. We have a long way to go to realize our potential. We still get quite a lot of the easy problems wrong. We display a profound ability to make the simple complex and the complex simple. Still, I see a bright future, somewhere out there, it just may take longer to reach than we would like. We are all amazing, each and every one of the seven billion plus of us. We just need to be reminded from time to time. Continue reading →

Friday Nite Poetry: Worlds Apart

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Abandoned subway

Abandoned subway (Photo credit: phill.d)

 

Hello again, gentle readers. I bring to you a pair of new poems. I will be sliding into, as I am wont to, my social justice mode of thinking for this week.

While I am here, just a friendly reminder that we are having a fundraiser here at Hand of Ananke. You can help out by hitting the donate button there and giving whatever you can. I don’t expect something for nothing, however. Help out with $5 or more and you get a free pdf of my chapbook Delicate Art of Saying Yes, help out with $10 and more and you get that, and can choose between a signed copy of either Ego Codex or Drawing Lines, and if you help out with $20 or more, you get all three. Your help will give me the ability to grow this blog so I can offer you more. Continue reading →

Friday Night Poetry: Quanta

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English: A simulated view of the entire observ...

English: A simulated view of the entire observable universe, approximately 93 billion light years (or 28 billion parsecs) in diameter. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The universe is both more immense and tinier than we imagine. As minute as we know atoms to be, within them are particles that are is small to them as they much smaller still. On the other end of the scale is the known universe itself, a place so large that light takes billions of years to reach from one end to the next. That is why this week I bring you two new poems about my meditations on those worlds. Continue reading →

Friday Nite Poetry: Welcome to Black History Month

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English: Black History Mural, Reading This sho...

English: Black History Mural, Reading This shows about half the mural which is on the side of the Central Club in London Street. It was painted in 1990 by Alan Howard and members of the club. The building behind, now the Great Expectations Hotel, is the former Everyman Theatre. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Five hundred years have gone by. Five hundred years of chattel slavery followed by brutal discrimination and demonizing. Half a millenia of erasure, excuses, hand wringing, and self-righteous, selfish argument. After all that, so many white people, not just in America, but around the world think wishing it all away is enough. We clap our hands and mouth “we love our black brothers and sisters” and think that does away with the systemic barriers created by five centuries of abuse. Continue reading →

Friday Nite Poetry: Adding It All Up

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Graph of example function,

Graph of example function, (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Some time back I did a little exercise using different number series or the digits of important irrational numbers as guides to the meter I would use in my poems. I called this series the Elohim, based on the idea that some people call mathematics the language of God. I bring these here for the first time. I hope you enjoy. Oh, and don’t forget, if you reblog this, or any other Friday Nite Poetry post, I will send you the link to a pdf of my chapbook, The Delicate Art of Saying Yes. Continue reading →