God: the ultimate case of I’ll see it when I believe it.
AGG20131015
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skepticism
you pulled on the skin of moon
honestly, after you died
I thought I’d see more of you
at least in my dreams
I looked forward to it—but
you pulled on the skin of moon
dusty yet ever changing—now
we only catch glimpses of you
in the morning slender in the west
full-proud in the east at sunset
above the skyscrapers like tombstones
sometimes howling can be heard
AGG20130911
Depth Charge: As so often happens, a pleasant walk makes everything so much better, including poetry. The original posting of this poem had this as the last line, “and sometimes I hear howling.” However, while walking to work I thought of the new line that now ends it. This line is much better because it is much more ambiguous. Who is howling? The deceased? The speaker in the poem? Other mourners? Or, is it completely random howling? While this type of ambiguity really irritates some people and alienates them from poetry, I maintain a good poem must have clarity of image and ambiguity of meaning and emotion.
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Monkey No Aware #22 — Death is the Spice of Life
Illumination
Illumination
Is nothing—if not human
As our consciousness
Echoes—in others— dimly
Dimly—repeats—nevermore
AGG20130820
Depth Charge: We need a material awakening, not a spiritual awakening. We need to face up the responsibilities of our material being, a material being that includes our minds, our memories, all of our consciousness, a material being that cannot exist apart from the rest of the material universe.
To read Songs about Sex, Death & Cicadas by Andrew Grimes Griffin, just click on the link. To download a pdf, right click on the link and select “Save link as…”
Miroslav’s Cicada
no one has the time today
just to sit and do a little haunting.
from Water Sprite by Miroslav Holub
shattering the silence
would be the breaking of a mirror
and bring at least seven years
of shared bedtime stories
and a bad blood ending
tricked by faux love songs
you meet your end
in the jaws
of a clever katydid
I lay no claim
to your sad, sad song
shattering the silence
(is the breaking of the mirror)
is the breaking of bread
is the sharing of
discrete delusions
(is the beginning of the end
that has happened before
and will happen again)
AGG20130726
Depth Charge: Miroslav Holub, Battlestar Galactica and Peter Pan
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Monkey No Aware #21 — Hopelessly Hopeful, Awkwardly Optimistic
Perhaps the proof positive that humans are hardwired to be insanely optimistic is the way in which we always greet the news of someone’s death as if it were something unexpected. She could have been 95 years old and riddled with cancer, but when we hear she has died, it comes as a surprise, like “Really? Oh, I thought maybe SHE would be the one to live forever.“
AGG20130725
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Monkey No Aware #20 — Child Prodigies
Why are child prodigy musicians and singers so common while child prodigy writers are non-existent?
AGG20130508
(Thank you, Fran Lebowitz)
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Monkey No Aware #19 — Talking among Myselves
A good title for my next collection of poetry: Talking among Myselves.
AGG20130504
Depth Charge: The Self Illusion by Bruce Hood
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Monkey No Aware #18 — afterlife/death : opinion/fact
The afterlife is a matter of opinion; death is a cold, hard fact.
AGG20130409
Depth Charge: “The plural of anecdote is not data; and the plural of opinion is not fact,” Susan Fiske
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Frog, Bug and Preacher: A Skeptic’s Nursery Rhyme
A frog in a well,
A bug in a tree,
A preacher preaching.
They think they are free.
A small plot of land,
A short spell of time,
A dusty old book,
All reason and rhyme.
The infinite span
Of wide open seas,
Fathomless knowledge,
All outside their creed.
A frog in a well,
A bug in a tree,
A preacher preaching.
You don’t want to be.
La-dee-da-dee-dig-a-dag-dik
La-dee-da-dee-dig-a-dag-dak
La-dee-da-dee-dig-a-dag-dik
La-dee-da-dee-dig-a-dag-dak
AGG20130312
Depth Charges:
Ancient: Zhuangzi – The Floods of Autumn
Classic: Carl Sagan’s Cosmic Calendar
Modern: Umwelt by David Eagleman
A bug in a tree: The mushroom of a morning does not know (what takes place between) the beginning and end of a month; the short-lived cicada does not know (what takes place between) the spring and autumn.
A frog in a well: Animated Short Film
tankawanka 