Broken Decade

The gunshot made losing popular, 

Distortion channeled the anger,

Annihilation of soul commenced

Through filters of noise. 

Industrial trash to feed the homeless,

Prozac to pacify the rebellious,

Books and music plagiarized by formulas,

Whistles of distraction fired from prime-time 

Hernias of Friends and Seinfeld.

Postmodernism debunked by computers,

Networks, medications, reality TV, 

The paralyzing venom of advertising

Packaging the hopes of youth,

Auctioning them off to the machine.

And the kids they grew up,

The kids hurdled the valley of death,

Streetlight prayers drowned by freeways,

And yet they dreamed, the kids growing up, 

How fragile they were, abused by the system, 

Parents who forgot how to read,

Forgot history, forgot their kids

Wasting away in basements of neglect. 

On drugs and gunshots the kids grew up, 

Losing their religion, their teenage spirit,

Crucified brains stained on Jeremy's blackboard,

Cold nights in bonfire under the bridge downtown.

And I grew up too, perched over the wasteland, 

Ejected from history, golden ages of community,

Buried by darkness of awkward identity,

Self-esteem mutinied, self-respect bullied,

To contemplate the big idea from the sideline,

To summon the will to survive. 

Neglection was my shield, desperation my sword,

Embers of rage the nuclear meltdown besieged,

Holocaust built on scraps of demolition 

Yearning for a stability once captured

So blissfully by the Sonics and Mariners. 

Grunge was my anthem, like the kids who grew up,

The raped kids, the mechanical brood

Picked from an assembly line to reap the cartridge.

And it was there, in a reverse suburbia,

Where the automated apocalypse throttled

The surface, earthquakes broke the structure,

Whose horror novels became reality,

The system broke down, subverted by nature,

Gothic aperture dilating a social suicide. 

Magnetron vortex that gravitated the damage,

Innocence consumed by anarchy, war, 

Freaks unleashed by the millennial gateway 

Opened by aliens on the radio waves

Spewing litany of conspiracies across the high desert,

Trapping us lost souls, we children of the Korn.

Bitterness burned me, I lifted the axe,

Cut the cord on my youth, drowned in the past,

My little boy, yes my lovely little boy,

Struggled to keep up, to keep his stupid head 

Above water, above the clouds, above the violence,

My beautiful little boy turned ugly by ninth year,

A crying angel, skin fried, feathers snipped,

Ripped carcas off the mist, a warm place,

A place I didn't belong, I didn't belong there

On that aimless path, that torture chamber of desks,

Knowing everybody's name, nobody knowing mine,

The hours becoming days, the days becoming months, 

The months stealing the years,

Boxing them with ribbons of deceit,

I didn't belong there, I belonged to that apocalypse

The 90s promised, because there was no other

Way out, nothing to inspire change

But the caterpillar in Lector's metaphor,

That became a butterfly to escape the burning.

Prescription low, electric storm brewing, 

Zapping that little boy, torturing him,

Burying him in the subconscious

Never to return, never to follow me,

The young man I was meant to become, 

Locked in the crystals of an ice-cold cavern.

 One morning I woke up.

 I got out of bed and brushed my hair.

 In the mirror I saw that little boy.

 My face was his.

 His face was the transformation.

 I tied him to my shadow.

 I brought him with me.

 Down the street we walked

 Thinking about a girl.

 And that's when I wanted her.

 That's when I wanted to become her.

 I wanted to bring the past with me

 By becoming her.

 The only way to become her

 Was to love her.

 Then to lose her.

 Then to live again.

Puzzle Dance

 You aren't even two
 But amazingly you can do it,
 A puzzle of the states
 Without any help.
 You know exactly where each one goes,
 Yes, you do,
 Like when you clean
 Instinctively, the way your mother does.
 Today you were close
 But a piece was missing,
 Wisconsin.
 You searched the bin
 A long time,
 Patient as the sea,
 For that missing piece,
 Your albino whale.
 Once you found it,
 You danced for us as bees do,
 Waggling towards pollen,
 Toes akimbo, mysterious,
 Proud to anticipate completion.
 Locked in, the piece gave you joy,
 Brought smiles to all of us.
 How happy you were
 To show us your new dance,
 A most puzzling one.

Bells for Beringia

 My children are little bells
 Chiming in laughter selected
 By tipsy rangers from the air itself.
 Outside they trip through the leaves
 Chirping like birds, tolling for the wind,
 Small voices carried aloft

 By the cold north wind
 Moving down the timberland coast,
 Turbulent vortices pivoting the trees.
 In tandem they laugh, unburdened,
 Tinkling in windrush drummed by branches,
 Swirls of gold and red and yellow
 Storming their fortresses of fall.
 A sound so delicate
 That the gods strain to hear

 Through whistling torrent of jet stream,
 Soaring melodies lifted 

 To the tip of heaven.

Air Carnival

Entrance

 Admission is free to all except children, who must pay with their black lungs. You must not touch the machinery for you risk a serious injury. Clowns are dressed in business suits; they get a commission for every laugh. Don't mind the fans, they are here to protect you. From what? Don't ask.

Ignorance Booth

 Your breath is fragrant with a minty dust. See the particles illuminated by fungi, viruses, and bacteria, too small to be seen with a naked eye. Each of them rolls through a kaleidoscopic slideshow, monster-sized symbionts dispersing in an invisible creepshow. Yes, even you breathe them in, you who thought the air wasn't alive.

Wind Booth

 Feel the wind on your face, that ancient air conditioner. You see jugglers gyrating a refrigerant as it compresses, sending cool relief through your nose. You are the wind and the wind is your body, sailing you aloft on imperceptible fluid that heals. The wind says, open your mouth for me, and I will make you see wonders.

Fish Booth

 A fish doesn't get thirsty because it doesn't need air. Their bubbles are what rise from the ocean to catch the wind. As the wind erodes canyons, so does it parch the flesh, rendering us ocean-dry, gasping for air.

Poetry Booth

 The calligrapher dances on salty sheets, painting the letters of a forgotten language, words that will speak to you only in death. It says that poetry is all you can breathe.

 Anatomy Booth

 Inside our bodies there is an atlas of open space where the air penetrates, deep pockets of fractalized labyrinthia that dark matter suspended. These are the roads where oxygen travels to ignite spirit, compounding energy into a stronger substance- that which cannot be extinguished by flames. It breathes life into you, this powerful elixir. You want to believe it will never run out, that resources will always be natural.

Air Tax Rollercoaster

 We'll erase your debt if you let us buy your air. We come in peace, with a gun on our shoulder. You have no choice  really. Once you're on the roller coaster there's no turning back. So ship all your air to us. Take your last breath at the top before plunging into the abyss of smog.

The Magic Show

 Intimate chemicals that see all, touch all, exchange with all, in Brownian motion they swivel as basketballs. They're everywhere and nowhere, breaching every opening, no matter how small. They reach every space of the court, all the matter wedged between its sidelines. They embrace you, the divine ether passing rays of information through your bones, transformative passes and jump shots emanating from the wand-shaped arms. Stars in every diamond of the net that brands your lungs. 

Encore

 Birds of all sizes and colors swoon the audience, dropping balloons from their talons that bounce about, their beaks popping each one in a frenzy of cacophony. Only when the silence comes can the music be heard, voices of nature that drift along on the currents, rising and falling like the journey of a score. The curtain closes on a galaxy of notes that levitate in the sky.

Chuckanut Drive

    Healingly enter serenity from the north. Tangled trees narrowed by moss filter October sunlight. Early October, leaves of gold and yellow dressing the seaside escape. Cliffs of oceanfront glittering gladly affore the distant islands, sun-kissed by gold light, glinting off seascape. The road winds narrowly, thrillingly, past vistas of tree-curtained sea lanes, the whales swimming gallantly in cerulean splendor. Off the mountain flank, silent rooks look sternly at this autumn festivity in full colors awash by seashore artistry, whence changing seasons come to paint the forest gaiety. High on the terrace we drive, swallowed by solace, a garden-crested troll bridge otherworldly, dripping fingers of lichen-colored garlands bleeding the amber ambience profusely. It takes your breath away, your first taste of nature in years, after the challenges of childbirth pushed you to your limits. 
    And now comes the valley, looming to the south, where sea meets the road and grass meets the forest, where the naval of the Earth uproots and you wonder how humans could possibly ignore her. Distant forms pepper the flatlands before the mountains; cows, horses, sheep, a cornucopia of domestic grains; simmering the fertile land with natural ornaments. The transition between equally beautiful places with such a strong contrast is quick and surreal. Now it seems like a dream, that the change is too disorienting, that there aren't really wonders so prolific in your own backyard, where the city fogs your view of the surrounding environment, reality snuffed by metropolitan smoke. But it's the trees back by the sea you'll remember most; those divine threads of sunlight draping the solemn tinted leaves like God's own fingerprints, bringing you to a stillness so strong that you couldn't even take a picture.

Quantum Computing in Life Sciences: A New Force?

    On the subject of forces in physics, something important came to my attention when reading Michio Kaku's new book "Quantum Supremacy". He states that life is only possible because it obeys the known laws of physics; that on the quantum level, electrons are taking the path integral (the path of least resistance) in life processes, such as in catalysts, which speed up chemical reactions, and in proteins, which facilitate many biological functions. Richard Feynman won the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the path integral and I am surprised he did not interpret it as a fifth force in physics since it is purely mathematical like the others. It might even explain consciousness itself.
    What's happening on the quantum level is that electrons exist in an infinite state of probability, but when we observe them they only appear in one place. The process Of protein folding, catalyzing, photosynthesis, and nitrogen fixation do not involve the most likely path electrons naturally take, but the most efficient; one that builds and creates order out of the chaos of inevitable disorder in any closed thermodynamic system.
    Kaku's thesis is that quantum computing can show us all the ways this happens on a molecular level. If it is indeed a force, various patterns should emerge, showing how the path of least resistance when certain atoms are combined obey a fundamental law of physics and not necessarily biology.

City of Chess

    Through the grid I roam, tarnished business suit enfolding the chances, lost in thought, found in finance, sulking under tall buildings built of chess pieces, the foggy rain shrouding their faces, imperialist hierarchy of the mercantile pandemic. Many pawns are we, limited in movement, sacrificed by probability yet capable of slaying an overshadowing superior. The briefcase keeps pace with unhinged knees that stumble down the streets seeking that serene space and a locked studio all my own, bound for another lonely evening amongst all the bustling nightlife the way I sat alone during lunch time at school, which was always the hardest part of being in Hell. Down they look on me, the ivory towers that commerce constructed, Knight to keep me immobile, Bishops to pontificate the moral apparatus, Rooks that attack when any escape from poverty opens on the path. Maneuvering down dusty alleys where the homeless slain keep me company from the possibility of it being worse, of the Queen disowning me or the King evicting me without even realizing they are the ones I've served, and even more oblivious to the player beyond the city, the God who trapped us in our rules for its own amusement. Down the streets I wander, another day another dollar, starless heart that binds my collar, leashed by a posterior skyline, standing taller, unknown forces rendering me smaller, smaller, smaller, until I finally falter, lose the dollar, become a crawler, a disillusioned scholar.

Arthur

 I don't understand either,

 Why people act the way they do.

 I even took a 21st century psychology class,

 But nothing was said about war,

 About why men fight.

 Merlin's adventures blessed you,

 Made you a happy boy

 Instead of a bastardized rebel,

 The way I was,

 The losses tearing down the years.

 You were stronger, and luckier

 To have found a mentor

 And a certificate of divinity,

 Your blood ordained by fate,

 A king worthy of the honor.

 Despite all that they treated you wrong,

 Betrayed you, slandered your name,

 Your son did not love you,

 The pain caught up, took you for a ride

 In later years, the opposite of my path

 (Hopefully),

 Disillusionment settled, a haunting familiarity

 That those who love you will hurt you most,

 Emotional unfairness

 Unexpected after all your service to Justice,

 Their actions unaccounted for,

 Their mercy unavailable

 For you, the noblest knight,

 Far nobler than the hero you supported.

 It finally took your death

 To discover the truth in Merlin's ghost,

 That youth was your only joy,

 Blocked by a moat surrounding

 Your castle of supremacy

 That overshadowed it.

 How hard you worked

 For nothing it seems,

 If no civil rights were gained,

 Only the legend of your honor,

 Generosity, strength, character,

 Aspiring thousands who came after,

 Including me, once blind to perseverance,

 Finally seeing

 How it is the greatest indicator of success,

 More than genius, talent, and even kindness.

 Rest easy, fair king,

 My king, if ever there was one,

 Only in fantasy.

 Where the great wonder that is boyhood

 Shines through both our eyes

 Connects us like a ribboned bookmark,

 Bridging my soul to yours

 Across the great divide of manhood.

The Dome of the Universe

 Anguish of Palestine the desert storm revoked,

 Moving pieces of the chess board to stale rubble,

 Blackened night of warming reflected in the sky

 That teaches philosophers we are all will ever know.

 All that stands is the Rock, knee of cypress

 In a murky swamp, diluted settlement of knowledge

 Dispersed among the foggy remnants displayed,

 Their majesty the green-tiled ornament

 Stripped of decoration to entomb the masses,

 Survivors who once believed in inevitable progress.

 They congregate before the Ascension,

 Whence prophets tickled the telescope,

 Casting beauteous constellations on the thin walls

 Lovelorn frost of destiny to those who remembered,

 Those who looked as far as the eye could see

 And only saw themselves, a star speckled explosion

 Pasted on the borders of Creation.

Ken

 I have no voice,

 Sidekick beach bum to a chirpy bimbo,

 Who doesn't love me, only the image,

 Oblivious to a world where men are free.

 Enigma rotting off the polished oasis,

 Yearning becomes me, though it isn't my time,

 They are more interested in the repressed,

 The black and the female, rightfully so,

 Voices that were silenced for centuries,

 Now suffocating those like my own.

 My art, ejected from the century's malaise,

 Seeking recognition where nobody wants it,

 My words covered in the plasticky ephemera

 That dolls and diversity package to consume,

 Seas of oil blanketing the conscience

 Lost in the noise and confusion.

 Perhaps the only thing left

 Is to become her, the one I love,

 Especially the image, the overbearing power,

 Effacement inevitable as the portal unfolds,

 Stripped to the muscles on bleached sand

 Caught in my own web of lies,

 To pretend what they seek 

 In order to be heard.

Freeway

His eyes are glowing off the concrete reflections that wheels had polished as I pondered the switching lanes of life that penetrated choice at the apex of predestination. Last exit the face misplaced through haze of headlight vanished beyond motorcrash the faintest galaxy of night high beams accelerated the shadow of doubt speeding off ramps destined for the absence of red octagon's eliminating stillness. Amplifier cranked beyond sound ceiling drifting carelessly assembled transmission watching for signs too quick to count through the windshield barricade sailing under bridges like a barracuda cannonball blasted by a torpedo tattooed buccaneer. Rolling through exits familiar lost detours claim there are grievances postponing the pain until next season as the computer chips away at calculated creation with circuits anthropogenized characters that click those eyes those deep brown eyes full of wonder transmitted to my heart and I love when he computes navigation the way I did the way GPS and Google do now like they were human overlords determining fate. In his eyes I see the next generation hurtling petroleum stained obstacles that stripped nature to the grid for eternal humiliation as the old gods are dethroned the Earth detaches from orbit spiraling toward the flames and they are in his eyes blazing at curious constructions like the crane over the carpool lane or the maze of the mall erected over electric avenues. All is mystery as funnels obscure the city lights undressed by twilight when the port ignites fire bright the way it did when I was young but of course it is even more awesome for him my son my DNA shrapnel deposited on the shoulder where dreams are recycled as the next exit calls his name. Years I spent passing these signs these exits which way to the next dead end or where do I go when the lights go out and he is not there while I ever get lost or have I always been and can I get there faster or should I slow down so the signs become more clear. Dear madonna on the borderline motherboard get me out of here okay AI are you listening stop the madness change the signal teach him the real magic not the artificial velocity of capital AI dear God AI if these words become manufactured will he be able to tell the difference and will the rest of the world or will the artists go out in flames like the wilderness AI I dare you to make a product of me AI packed like sardines in tinfoil telescopes oh have mercy AI shut down the engine get the devil off my rear rear view mirror oh help me AI please give me his eyes instead.

The Immortality Quintet

    Listen, the holy disentanglement of neurons, survival of passion through the chords, listen, reverberations that break through the surface, entering soul, permeating grief, forgotten crystals that fantasy entombed, listen, oh immortal Poet of the cosmos, harmonious oscillations in sync with the source, listen, close your eyes, sink into the sensation that sound is your sanctuary, lofty sounds, sounds that terminate doubt, extinguishing flames, where the planets have no name, listen, drink in the notes that flood your passions, caressing joy, embalming forgiveness, a tomb for the regrets, listen, love and laughter swimming around the chemicals, nutrients of salvation that bend the chords, listen, the emptiness opens your eye, unseals the juicy trance, listen, wings that strum high on lithium through the mysterium, listen, portal to heaven vibrating through the spheres.
    Calmly does peace of mind suture the void that between souls shed shadows into light. Vesicles of pheromones to dizzy the social apparatus, unconscious linkage of their arms at the shearing's fulcrum. Two blades of personality, sharp as the ringing of Sunday bells, separated at birth, moving closer as time's axle conspires with the elements, smiles wrapped in perfume disarmed by the bush. Though they quarrel by verse, divided by maximum extent, they are united in chorus, locked in comfort as they shears come together, two of a kind, a pair of dangerous allies, snipping at anything that comes in their path.
    Marriage of sound and rhythm weave these webs of destiny. Those caught in their snare relent to the course of life, those that don't are running from the song, the song that life is singing for them, ears closed to any suggestion of selfless achievement. It doesn't matter in the end, the song always catches them, even those driven, deaf to consequences. Once caught, the soul is immediately released to an ocean of vibration, where time stands still and the shears interlace. All that can be felt is the sweet melody, where the music lives.
    At the treehouse park an ordinary old man plays his guitar, simply and softly. The children chirp as they play under sun-soaked evergreen canopies. Their song is his, running and leaping around him, serenading his solo like a flock of flamingos. They tell him to watch out for the bees, golden strings that buzz through wildflowers, inviting sunlight. Children-song endorses his slow picking as it pacifies the playground dressed in trunks, leaves, branches, light footsteps treading on brown and green. The sounds carry to a curious family with little ones, aimlessly trumpeting around a tennis court. He watches the children clambering in playful abandon, a wild brass duet to accelerate his reserve, suddenly warbling in unison the chorus to "Waltzing Matilda". And it all makes sense.
    A stone ejected from a supernova spends an eternity in space, waiting for her. Millions of orbits it passes in blind anticipation, descending into a gravity nexus built of stone on top of stone. Eons it spends cooling, reheating, cooling again, the cycles of settlement like life and death, waiting for her. Long has it listened, in the place where music lives, only to wait for her. The oceans churn, the mountain roll and tumble, animals come and go, the sun and the ice share supremacy, and still it waits for her. Until one day, in the cozy nook of the cavern, it hears her for the first time, a jingling child of the jungle, fetching gem for the trade. She sings that there's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold.

Affirmations

 I am a good father

 I am a loving husband

 I am an intelligent student

 I am a capable accountant

 I am a creator of beautiful art

 I make mistakes that I always learn from

 I help when asked or needed

 I am a breaker of cycles of abuse

 I have been a monster transformed

 When overwhelmed, I step back

 I keep my body active

 I take care of my body

 I am a good son

 I am careful with money

 I am efficient and organized

 My navigation skills are exceptional

 I see things before they happen

 I have never been fired

 I am successful at everything important

 I have read a 1000 books

 I have written a 1000 works

 I have been to the top of mountains

 I have seen the nation's wonders

 I am beautiful inside and out

 I listen when it's important

 I feel empathy for strangers

 I am a good subordinate

 I am not afraid to break rules

 I am affectionate and playful

 I make wonderful playlist

 I am a stress reducer

 Teaching gives me energy, purpose

 I am a gifted geographer

 I don't consume unnecessary things

 I have respect for nature

 I live in the present

 I have saved the inner child

 I am a hero

Chance

You, the shifty robber of despair,
A momentary passion of hope
That seizes misery by the throat,
Open the door to ardent paradise
In a bonfire of imaginary promises.
Take this anxious heart beyond
Industrial poison, the dirt submerged,
Diluted soap of freedom penetrating
Obscured senses, prying new eyes open
That seek solace in love and oblivion.
Up in the sky your light shines,
Designed to be recognized
By the wise or the lost,
Fragments in retrograde once cheated,
Brought to the knees by heavy burdens,
Kisses and smiles grappling for air,
A buried redemption that seeks to escape,
Setting the loose knots of history in order.

The Genie

Brush gently, open me up

Out of these confines, these corners,

The walls disintegrating,
The office dissolving before my eyes,
Help me out of the cement,
Untie the ropes that keep me bound,
Draw me through the opening
Like a spirit escaping mortality.
Give me eyes that are fresh
That I may see the world anew
As a newborn through a birth portal,
Electric wormhole to the world outside.
My talents are confiscated, my passions subdued,
Suffocating under my own magic,
Here in this lamp, a castrated dilletante
Waiting for the miracle,
Some wise soul to rub me out,
Resume growth, engage potential,
When it happens I will reach humility,
Sanctity, the orbital webs of joy
Kneading my completeness, in service to others,
A Bishop removed, snapping off chains,
Freedom to move, free to live.

Map Critique: Ancestry in the U.S.

 

        The map above takes an interesting look at ancestry in the U.S.  It is a choropleth map of every county in the country, showing the most people who claimed a common ancestry.  But just because a map is interesting doesn’t mean it is faultless.  For instance, the title “Largest Ancestry: 2000” doesn’t specify the region the map is representing.  The cartographer should have included the country we are seeing and the dimension of the borders, going something like this: “Largest Ancestry in the U.S. by County: 2000”.  Also, the title can easily be confused for the legend title because there are two other maps in the banner, making it seem like it is describing those instead of the main one.

            Otherwise, the cartographer did a great job communicating the data with text.  There is a suitable legend with a high amount of detail; subtitles are included by map type (state vs. county); and source information is written in two locations.  State names and major cities could have been added to help readers less familiar with U.S. geography.  The font size is good, though it appears small and crammed in places because there is so much information in the legend.  I would have removed the “other” categories since we see them only once on the map and it would help reduce clutter.

Data on the map comes from the U.S. census, where ancestry claims were quantitively calculated by county.  What we see on the map is the greatest number of people in each county claiming a common ancestry (Jerreat, 2013).  Just to be clear, the choropleth only reflects the primary ancestry of the population of each county; ancestry that ranked second, third, and fourth had nothing to do with what is shown on the map.

While data from the U.S. Census is highly reliable, there a couple issues at hand.  This article was published by the Daily Mail U.K., which has a low credibility rating according to Media Bias/Fact Check (2016).  This by itself doesn’t render the data inaccurate, but it is more likely to make the reader question what they are seeing.  Secondly, since the data is taken from the 2000 census, it poses a problem because there have been two others since then (2010, 2020); and after 2000, the census did not poll for ethnicity.  Since the map cannot be updated to reflect the current census, some counties are likely showing the wrong color in today’s world.  The third and biggest problem is that both links for the data source on the map are broken.  Readers cannot trace data to broken links; they are left having to look up the information themselves, and wondering if it is the same as the cartographer’s.  The article was written in 2013 and either needs to be removed, updated after a new survey, or rewritten from an historical perspective.

            A flaw in the map that may lead to an ecological fallacy is that it doesn’t show other high ranked ancestries in each county, which often may have several that are close to being the primary one.  For instance, in King County, WA, German was the top reported ethnicity at 292,504 (U.S. Census), but there were three others with over 100,000: English (209,263), Irish (192,778), and Norwegian (105,042).  The map gives the illusion that counties like these are dominated by one ancestry when only about 15% of the population is being represented.  To fix the problem, I would take the data a step further and include the percentage of the highest ancestry on each color spectrum.  If one county has a dominant ethnicity (over 50%), the represented color will be much darker than one where the leading figure is only 15%.  This would help to reduce the impression that Germans appear to be the leading ancestry by a wide margin in our country.

            The map is so versatile with color that few would notice any patterns in the cartographer’s choice of using them.  However, a closer look reveals something that is almost scandalous: the colors that stand out the most represent the most discriminated racial groups in our country.  Perhaps coincidentally, African Americans own the darkest color on the choropleth, a loud purple.  Mexican and Native Americans are pink and orange respectively, which isn’t so suggestive.  But most of the colors representing white or European ancestry are in the range of blue to green to light purple, falling in line with the light blue of neighboring countries on the map, which allows them to blend in more than the others.  To be more conscious of race, I would have altered the color scheme to look more random when making a map like this.

            The main message of the map is that America’s reputation of being a melting pot holds firm geographically, but there are many other possible conclusions to be drawn.  Though German appears to dominate the map, most of the counties where it is leading are rural areas with low population levels.  Complementary data that would help illustrate this point is population density.  One can also surmise that Germans were more likely to continue migrating west after they entered the country, along with the Dutch, Irish, and Norwegian immigrants.  Southern European immigrants, including the French and Italians, appear to have been more likely to stay in their regions.  Urban areas on the map tend to have surprises that add a unique flavor of ethnicity to the map, such as Miami (Cuban) and San Francisco (Chinese).  Complementary data that would help to analyze this might involve migration patterns; are certain ethnicities represented more because they migrate more?  Finally, it is fascinating how there is a belt of people in the south who identify as American but not anywhere else in the country.  Perhaps these areas have people who feel more patriotic since they don’t identify as much with their ancestor culture.

            All these messages make the map a fun one to digest.  Anyone in the U.S. who knows where their county is can look it up and ponder how accurate it is.  In my county it says German is the leader, which may have changed in the last 20 years as there are more Asian and Indian Americans now.  Not only would complementary data showing migration patterns demonstrate how populations on the map developed historically, but it would predict their trajectory for the future as well.  That way the result for counties like mine would make more sense.

 

Sources:

Jerreat, Jessica.  (2013, September 1).  The Map That Shows Where America Came From.  Daily Mail U.K.  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2408591/American-ethnicity-map-shows-melting-pot-ethnicities-make-USA-today.html

Media Bias/Fact Check.  (2016, July 9).  Daily Mail- Bias and Credibility.  https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-mail/

U.S. Census.  (2010).  King County.  https://ofm.wa.gov/sites/default/files/public/legacy/pop/census2000/dp58/co/033.pdf

Charity

    To give is our most divine privilege. To give without saying it's from you is divinity tenfold. To give to someone who is hungry when you are just as hungry yourself is divinity thousand fold. To give when you are sacrificed; bruised and bloodied; stretched to the limits of pain by the one who needs you; that is an infinite divinity. Give freely without expecting something back, you will experience the purest joy.        Seldom does something we receive bring more joy than something we have given, unless we are still children mired in our possessions. Yet when you receive, act as if it is the greatest joy, and always except what is coming your way, even if it is too much. Those who want to give you something are finding charity in themselves, with you as the benefactor; do not reject their appeal to divinity.
    Discretion must also be taken when giving. If you give something useless, that is only seen as an obligation, you do more harm to the receiver than you realize, for your relationship will seem less important to them. You wouldn't give a bone to your cat, or a guitar to a piano player. Just because you like something doesn't mean they will. Why make a steak for a vegetarian? Always have their needs in mind when you give, what you think they'll want. And if you are too ignorant about someone to know what they need, either get to know them better or give nothing but your attention.
    When you think you have nothing to give, get creative. Never wait until you have a lot of money to give a lot, or the opportunity may never come, you may just be making excuses to yourself. Give something immaterial instead, like your smile, your energy, your muscles, your labor, your cooking- there are a great number of things to give that are not material. A similar excuse is being too busy. The things you truly value are what you spend the most time on, so if it is not charity then don't pretend you are a saint.

Libra's Heaven

 Love is the ageless wisdom

 That medicates all grief,

 Laminating fragments of you that

 Gyrate on the spirals of creation.

 To love another, to take them all in,

 To see the good, acccept the bad,

 To feel for them an array of sparks

 Lost to most, perceived by the chosen,

 To understand in them what others cannot,

 To forgive their gravest transgressions,

 Speckle their charming quirks

 On a map of your soul

 Whose destination is happiness,

 Completion, the holiest of states,

 To love, my dearest, is to see them

 In perfect harmony with something you lost,

 The answer, the missing piece

 To witness their being as God intended.

 In faint hollow light the pendulum swings,

 Gadgets of clockwork to split the scene,

 Oscillating glimpses of smiles that sing,

 Reaching the choir uplifted by strings,

 Into oblivion the fulcrum retrieves

 Remembrance of bliss, a body so clean

 To rinse you of folly once thought obscene,

 Creamy skies by delight, your love alight

 On the other side, revolving through night,

 Returning after each flight, momentary fright

 Bedazzled by billowy azurite.

 Balance we must master, to receive the peace,

 We must adapt to their soul like a new land,

 Adapt their differences, slide into the gears,

 Not force their hand in mechanical blunder,

 But naturally through the odysseys of Venus,

 A lone star in that paradise of togetherness,

 Where beams sway to the ticking of hearts,

 Expiring only by the malfunctions of pride, or death.

14 Keys to Happiness

Behold!  In which these are the ingredients needed to live a happy life. I have been miserable before, but a soothing calm has overtaken me the older I grow. First, realize that the happiness of others is often exaggerated in your mind. Do not compare yourself to others. Usually they aren't as happy as you imagine, while some of the people you imagine being miserable are truly content. Second, you must not expect too much from the world and others around you, for it does not revolve around you. You would be more content to serve the others around you, in myriad forms, as being helpful saturates the spirit with wholeness. Third, forgive the ones who have wronged you, no matter how hard it is. You don't know what life is like living in their shoes, and seldom do you know the situation they're in. Sustain judgment for the crass and idiotic. Not until you've lived their life can you fully understand the million little pieces of them. Fourth, find love by marrying well and having children. You are a social being, and nothing will make you feel more connected than family.  Fifth, find God, even if you can't see it. Knowing God will give you purpose. It doesn't have to be a literal being; the rhythm of the universe will suffice. Sixth, make your home well. Nothing reflects inner feeling like the environment around you, so keep it clean and welcoming. Decorate your life with the things that bring you peace and balance. Seventh, moderate your pleasures and passions. Too much of anything will squeeze the succulent juice out. Eighth, be thankful, for often we are unaware how bad our life could be, even on the worst days. Ninth, be a minimalist. You don't need a lot of things to make you happy. The appearance of being happy is not the same as being at it. Tenth, work hard at what gives you a feeling of completeness, at something that you feel no one can do quite like you can. Your contributions are needed; your uniqueness is a soft note on the web of humanity, no matter how many others you touch. Eleventh, be authentic, your true self. Pretending to be someone you're not will drown the soul. Twelfth, find acceptance in the faults of others and especially yourself. Though striving for it may make us happy, perfection can never be achieved. Bad things will happen in this life or the next one. It's how we react to them that makes the difference. Be accountable, assertive, resilient-your self pity won't slow you down and you'll have few regrets. Thirteenth, have respect for all life, human or animal or plant. Treat the person next to you the way you would want them to treat you. Fourteenth, after mastering this list, throw it away. "Very little is actually needed to make us happy", said Marcus Aurelius. Live like this list was second nature, don't think about it too much. Fret not for things out of your reach.

Death By Tornado

    The storm chaser is hosting his own podcast. He interrupts one of his guests when a tornado is about to form. There is enough down time when storm chasing to make this possible- he has a whole team helping him. The show is broadcast straight from his van, where all his meteorological technology is, and once a storm hits, the camera in his car turns on so that his fans can watch him as he's driving. Reed Timmer meets Art Bell. The show becomes the most popular podcast in history, mainly because of the chaos involved in cutting off an exciting topic for an even more exciting chase, and the possibility of  seeing his reaction to a tornado taking form.
    One day his wife calls on the air just before an F4 tornado touches down. He tries to cut her off but she becomes agitated. She exposes him for cheating on her, totally live, right as everyone sees the tornado he is chasing.  The humiliation causes him to change direction, putting him right in the path of the storm. He forgets all safety protocol in a futile attempt to passify his wife. He can't even listen to his crew because he is trying to "explain" his side of the story in ultimate panic mode. Finally he realizes the gravity of the situation; the F4 tornado is about to send his van flying with the whole world watching as his wife continues to chastise him. 
    He tries to interrupt her one more time, and in the back of her mind she can hear him saying he is about to die. She doesn't care. The tornado accomplishes her revenge. What makes it funny is her complaints seem trivial to the actual cheating. Very little is said about the true offense. A garden variety domestic quibble has turned into a viral sensation as the awesome forces of nature tear it apart. The storm chaser becomes the first person in history to die on the air from driving into a tornado.

Toby

 Innocent youth skimming the lake
 Lush with fronds from the willows,
 They're coming for you, the demons of lust
 Who lie hidden in the lake community,
 Behind the incense of sermons, priests
 Who preached from the heart, not the mind.
 Take your books and go back to school,
 Don't look behind, or they will follow you
 Cordless vespers in the evening dew
 Clamoring for attention over the soft air
 Treading water you breathe in the passion,
 Oblivious to the schemes of scripture,
 Fully absorbed by the atmosphere
 Where fireflies at twilight soothe the water,
 Torn asunder by curiosity to discover
 What the nuns declined to render,
 Dormant sirens muffled by the bell below.

Unicorn of the Forest

     In the cold frostlands of Russia there lived a maiden who loved to sing.  She sang so sweetly that all the animals in the forest came to witness the beauty of her voice.  Even the fabled unicorn, who was attracted to virgins, came to her voice like a calling from some arcane mythology.  Of all the animals, the unicorn was her favorite, for it was the only one that matched her in beauty, and so she did well to tame it.  When she brought it back to the village, all were amazed that a mere serf had caught the attention of such a legendary creature.

    One day, a nobleman came to the village and heard her singing.  He'd never heard anything as captivating, so he spied her from afar.  What also attracted him was that she was comforting the white beast of the forest, caressing its neck as she murmured a soft lullaby, making him feel envious.  It didn't bother him that she was a serf; he did everything he could to woo the maiden, and inevitably she relented.  After she lost her virginity to him, he asked her to marry him, and so they planned to wed the following spring.  But laying with him came with a price: the unicorn was seen no more in the village.

    The maiden became like any regular serf, still lovely and talented at singing, but without the charm of her unusual pet.  Yet the nobleman still loved her, like she hadn't even lost her unicorn.  When he brought her to the city of his birth, she was shunned by the aristocracy to have bewitched their young count, but he insisted on loving her, that it was he who had courted her, and that all were invited to their wedding.  Only five people came though, as even members of his immediate family were absent, which left him feeling betrayed and disillusioned.  How their love could be rejected and vilified due to a social convention was beyond their understanding.  As time went on they found themselves living in seclusion, isolated from everyone who'd paid tribute to his regality, even his own family.  He was also disheartened to find that he'd lost his inheritance; that even his heirs would not get anything because of the supposed sin of interclass marriage, indoctrinated most strongly by artistocrats in the Church.

    Over time, love proved stronger than convention.  The couple loved each other deeply for years, having a son in the process, and building a life for themselves.  That strength never brought society to their side.  When the wife grew deathly ill, she was only in her 30s.  It was only then that she regretted marrying a nobleman, as she was certain God had punished her for her actions by taking her away early.  Lying on her deathbed, she asked forgiveness from the Lord, which pained her husband to no end.  That her last thought should be regret for marrying him was something he'd never recover from.

    Until one day he was teaching his son to hunt in the forest, when the unicorn came upon them.  It rested its head on the nobelman's legs, as it had done when it first saw the virgin so long ago, his bride to be.  The man stroked its glorious horn, as his wife had done just before he courted her.  Take me back, he said to the unicorn, so that I may undo what is done.  The unicorn did not listen.  Instead it went over to the son, himself a virgin, and led him deep into the forest.  The father followed, confused at this sudden turn of events.  In the forest they found her, bruised and bloodied, raped and presumably dead, not from disease but from a raid on the village that was to occur soon after she left with the count.  It dawned on him that this is what would have happened had he never taken her away, and neither would his son have been born.  The apparition faded once his understanding was complete; he had made the right decision, and his wife would have agreed had she known.  God's judgment is never made in death, only in life.

    There in the forest, he built a new home to live the rest of his days, honoring his deceased wife with a shrine of pagan imagery.  The son returned to the city to successfully reclaim his heritage, convincing the aristocracy that his father's actions should not influence his status in society.  He was so convincing that the cultural dam broke on interclass marriages, and others would soon be doing it- the shame directed at the castigated couple turned back on the aristocrats.  Every time he returned to the forest, the unicorn led him back to his father's house, which could never be found on a map.  The son would wonder if it even existed; if the unicorn had somehow taken them through a portal to another world.  And there he would find him, seeing his father for what he hoped wasn't the last time, the faint remembrance of her songs emanating from their embrace.

Sapphire Dinner

Blue seafood banquet on the Edmonds pier

That sunlight graced with loving kindness

Presented us a pristine Puget scene

Of ferries and mountains and whales,

Wispy fragments of childhood wonder

Brushed by a cloudless quartzite sky.

Smiles aglow around the seraglio dome,

Mothers in ecstasy celebrating home,

Glints off the glass that love smashed

To smithereens, shirts blue and green,

Cards from sons and daughters, emotive in spring.

We thank you for this food, we thank you for their love,

Theirs is the greatest of flavors, dashed by a holy cross,

Saints of tenderness the angels marinated,

Joy and care transmitted from their smiles to ours.

Those beau monde coquettes who stole the eye,

Reflected lasciviously through the polished glass,

Yield to this platter of crustaceans and kinship:

Nothing is more important, alas, we sometimes forget.

To stay together is a gift, often overlooked,

Though we deign to surrender its value,

With plates of gratitude left at the shrine.

A Peaceful Death

    Into the ocean we fell, three or more comrades, blasted from a ship in some war, or natural disaster.  We knew our lives were over, we resigned ourselves to the end.  No struggle, no pain, only acceptance, a mutual acknowledgment of the inevitable.  Yet together we were stronger in death than we would have otherwise been.  Dying with others is less scary that way; it's as if the shared experience purifies it, attaches your soul to others for eternity.  We left with no regrets, no anger, no fear that we would not live on.  Our lives felt complete, as if we'd left no business unfinished, no stone unturned.  Weak as we were, the strength of death infiltrated our bones as we closed our eyes, drifting in the shallow light, darkened underworld reaching to catch us.  La petite fille de la mer, ejected from the mantle of the material, misty corridor through which surrender evaporates, shaded enigma where the scaled ribbons of light undulate.  As the light went out, we spoke to each other, that this is the end, that all is ok.  Nothing left to achieve, nothing left to say, nothing left to do but let the universe dissolve our ashes while preserving our souls.  It is not as terrifying as it seems, for even if we are alone, others are waiting.  All the ones who passed before us.  They say welcome, brother.

Brother Ivan

Long-haired hippie of the golden coast,

Disciple of wisdom and all that's free,

Preach to orphans destined for light,

Show them the way from trauma and abuse,

Neglect sedated by drugs of wonderment,

Miracles in the mind turned to healing.

Hitchhiking gypsy wearing tattered cloth,

Shoeless yet radiant in the sunset's calm,

Baptize these lost children, that they may be saved

From the dark machine's firm grip.

Seek the elders who misunderstand, castigate,

Yet care in ways only you could reveal.

Rejoice in the delicacy of their illusions,

Pry them open with parables and proverbs.

 

On the mountain you sit, the wind on your face,

Talking with your father, who commands

You to unite them, who wishes to use you

The untarnished vagabond above the fault,

Destitute of vice despite the hardship-

This the truest miracle in all you perform-

You must be his voice, yes, in the calm golden light,

Fingertips of sunlight bathing your skull,

Wrapping you in warmth with the city's heartbeat.

You will wander those freeways, an answer to prayers,

Forsaken once the Word got out,

Content beyond measure to have served

Divine teachings where the ocean is reborn.

Globalization or Americanization?

     Globalization is the catch-all term for modern economic and sociopolitical norms, fermented by technology, communication, and transportation networks that facilitate trade and the transfer of ideas.  But how much of it has its origins in the U.S.A, and if it is upwards of 50%, would Americanization be a better term to describe the zeitgeist of our modern world?

    The short answer is yes, the vast majority of innovative products with global appeal have American origins, or at least were inspired by something American.  Not only do people like to buy our stuff, but the traditional incentive for immigrants attracted by our superior law system, the idealization that money grows on trees here, that there is so much prosperity and land that anyone can be happy, means that most of the free world world now yearns for an American way of life, which is arguably more important than the actual products we export.  It's our superior marketing talent (and volume) that stamps a lifestyle for the new age on all citizens of the world, from the Chilean mountains to the Australian outback.  The idea of Americanism actually uprooted globalization- for a truly globalized world means all countries spread goods and ideas equally- to the point where one country dominates by incorporating elements of all the others.

    It's the nature of investment, and the establishment of an identity when there isn't any.  Companies like Disney do a brilliant job of building an artificial mythology, stolen from the cultural vaults of other countries.  Every film they release takes a piece of someone else's culture and tattoos it onto ours, effectively marketing it for global distribution, so that what we have now are American versions of ancient, sacred stories to pacify unaware consumers around the world. The transformation from an authentic mythology rooted in a specific region, such as Aladdin in Arabia, may seem ominous until you realize this is what people want.  The modern world wants modern stories, fast and zesty, fun and accessible, for all to relate with it, which also serves to make them easier to market and distribute.

    It doesn't stop at movies either.  Our music, food, engineering, software, literature, etc., have all made strides around the world, so that what we have are a group of many cultures gravitating toward one.  No other country even comes close to our prestige and influence.  China could if it wanted, but its political order will not allow it.  India was too far behind to have a chance.  Britain and other European countries never had the resources in close proximity the way America did.  Only Japan seems capable of catching up with us, with potential revolutions in anime and video game adaptations.  Yet one doesn't see Japanese culture overtaking a place like sub-Saharan Africa the way American culture could.  It's because our people have roots everywhere, and nobody is limited from coming here.  They wouldn't know it, but the anti-immigrants in this country are truly the anti-Americans, for they want to deny America the very thing that made it great enough to grow uncontrollably alluring: its unprecedented diversity.

Sociobiology and the Roots of Human Social Systems

     In Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology, he stated that humans have 2-5 million sweat glands, far more than any other primate, helping us become distinctly adaptive to bipedalism since we could move longer distances than others in our family tree.  It helped me realize that sweating profusely is nothing to be ashamed of; in fact, people who sweat more readily have a superior trait in our evolutionary branch.  People who sweat more can survive in extreme environments like excessive heat or food scarcity, which requires further migration.  While our culture seems to shame sweat with expressions of disgust, I wear it like a badge on my sleeve.  When I'm running or working hard, I don't care what others think.  I'm content to show the world how strong this necessity of human survival is in me.

    The book itself seems to have caused a rift in the sciences, as it rightly suggests a biological basis for some of the more nefarious human behaviors.  The social sciences in particular (psychology, sociology) take issue with the postulate that genes determine most of our behavior, socially and individually.  Though I majored in social sciences, I'm not going to let it influence my judgment on the matter.  I believe much of our behavior can be explained the same way animal behavior can, since we all developed along similar lines and we all came from the same ancestor species.  But humans are so marvelously diverse that biology can't explain all behavior- environments certainly can as well.  

    It's just that as social creatures, it's important to consider the roots of anthropological and political order, thus I feel we must heavily consider the information in this book when investigating how civilization became the way it is, with its hierarchical structures and dog-eat-dog mentalities, with so much inequality that it's a miracle we can see our sociological habits as any more superior than insects.  We are truly a a classic example of evolutionary convergence, where our social habits have strangely emerged to mimic ants and bees.  We create hierarchies and network the same way they do; we build and destroy, claim property and wage war and build cities like ant colonies; we follow each other in line, excavating and consuming resources like there's no tomorrow; all to feed our miraculous amount of nervous energy; and like them, we are far stronger than our small stature would indicate.

The Parenting-Industrial Complex

     One of the important things to learn from Gabor Mate's The Myth of Normal is that the western version of parenting is toxic to culture.  Self-soothing, shaming, ignoring, teaching them to sleep alone, no breastfeeding- these are all symptoms of a backwards philosophy we inherited from the Puritans, who sought to enhance the Protestant work ethic by sacrificing the child's well-being.  Because now we don't have the time, energy, or patience to always be by our child's side.  We don't have multiple caregivers like the thousands of hunter-gatherer societies before us, all through history, that rarely left infants alone.  We're lucky to even have children in multiple age groups living near us, for our children to interact with.  And if we don't, we have to pay thousands of dollars for daycare or preschool just to buy them a social life.

    This is something I have never been more wrong about.  Four years ago, I agreed with Dr. Benjamin Spock in his most-popular-selling-parenting-book-of-all-time that discipline should be taught as early as possible, and with our pediatrician that letting a baby cry to sleep won't do it any harm.  I tried to enforce these views on my wife and firstborn for a long time, but neither would succumb to these westernized violations of nature.  Every time I made a stressful situation worse by trying to force compliance, it made my son that much more defiant.  My wife was right all along; we needed to hold him as much as possible, no matter how tired this sick society made us.  And no matter how little help we got.  

    My mother has the same disease I have, the expectation that a child should have minimal contact in order not to spoil them.  It is a disease of our culture and society and goes a long way to explaining how neurotic these generations have become, at least in the west.  I see no such symptoms in places like Thailand, my wife's homeland, where younglings are given as much attention as any other mammalian species gives to theirs.  It is even a crisis of evolution, that we are teaching our children to be as unemotional and detached from nature as possible, going against the fiber of every other upbringing in our kingdom, the mammals, where we inherited a natural need to be touched, held, and loved unconditionally.  

    I have not seen evidence that being fully attentive to children aged 1-5 spoils them.  My feeling is that it only happens if parents continue doing it past an appropriate age.  The whole idea is fodder for the parenting-industrial complex, which publishes books that indoctrinate us with the capitalist suburbia mantra that before we can care for our children, we must make the money to support them.  If we must teach them to be alone at an early age, all for that glorious dollar, so that we can prove how successful we are as individuals, then it is a total sham in the eyes of nature, which judges us from afar, mocking us with the evidence that all mammals care for their young more than we do, as did every human culture before ours.  It proves how much the western lifestyle is a neurotic function of individualism, a crippling detergent from reality, which has not only damaged our minds but the world around us as well.

The Red Cedar

It was the only home they knew,

A hollowed red cedar in a dampened wood,

Carpets of moss fringing their hideaway,

Solace of snow undressing the spring.

Tempest of ocean the divide radiates

Between their races, between their souls,

First love, young as the budding trilliums,

Shadows of war spoiling the vintage.

There they hid, in the hollow cedar,

The world away from them, no one could see

Their secret, a sacred natural temple

Where all their differences could be shared.

She touched him there, on fertile ground,

Shafts of sunlight penetrating

Holes in the wood where he held her,

Hands trembling, a dangerous submission,

Breaths rising, secrets compromised,

When he asked her to marry him,

In the the hollow red cedar, her hands on his chest,

Their breaths subsiding, the golden sunlight penetrating

Deep, a rupture of doubt to darken the bliss.

Ferocious Trash Angel Package Pixie

She was a blur, courageously assure,

Obscurely dirty, wearing a dusty shirt,

She churned the packages, burnt and purged,

The cardboard buried in magic words,

Spurned conveyor backward once heard,

Earned my turn at the faint soft yearn,

Enchantress of perfume, a luring dessert,

The smile that served my humble reserve.

Silver streaks of hair superb,

Glossy nails of length absurd,

Sandy freckles aglow, a vacant concern,

Eyes and lips of fermented luster,

And the curves, wow, they made me burst,

Frisky whorl of unburdened swirls,

Stirring mischief among the boxes unfurled.

Geography Ponk

To be given another chance is an unexpected treasure,

A dream recovered is a mistake reversed,

To teach one's greatest talent is a life fulfilled,

Dawn of excellence the voyage traversed,

Every struggle groveling to martyrdom. 

A garden of maps the trees encompass,

Stems magnetic, aligned in longitude,

Mountains and rivers carving the petals,

Fragrant valleys leading to the pollen

Where ripened cities upwell the roots.

As they blossom, life comes full circle,

Spring returns, growth retaliates,

Wraps itself over the civilizations

Wasted by a wintry youth,

A long winter, the longest in memory,

New certainties thawing that season of doubt.

Insects fertilize the streets, ambitions erected

From buildings in the budding,

Frozen wishes melted by the sun,

Turning toward that sacred energy

Watching over us like the Maker.

Shadows lift and suddenly it is noon,

The busiest hour, a time to catch up,

Enter in the lost data, navigate the hedges,

Be the one you were destined to be,

When suddenly a funny noise disturbs the peace.

It's a blimp aloft, a child's play thing,

Crashing into the trees, a silly interruption,

Generated by other desires to complete the mission,

Reminding you that their gift is yours to return,

A father to maintain, a teacher to become.

The Fablemans

Young man, child of vision, harness your dreams,

Go hard and don't quit, forgive thy mother,

Live humbly, be gracious, turn to the light,

Project your enemies as they are,

Be true among all the crass- a gentleman.

Shuffle through horizons you developed

In cuts of film littering the table

Where designs of myth darkened the flash,

Seize those events, make them omniscient.

You have stories to tell, actors to inspire,

Fleeting moments of humanity to capture,

If not for a minute then at least a second,

Until the music stops recording that fine precision

Interlaced with the visual harmonies of your world.

Crucified

Bearing the cross over my breast,

Namesake the key to your exile,

You raised me up over the crowd,

Dangling from a rope, muted like a Stark,

You made an example of me

To the fear-struck believers.

Whorl of sluggish vapors,

My spirit was twisted from celebration

That mourning stole from your jealousy,

Words muffled, muzzled by rejection.

The words are still there,

Boiling in the karmaic ether,

Tossed among the undignified gospels,

Patient for the award of forgiveness.

It says I love you, keeper of childhood,

Never forget who you are,

What we lived through,

How easy it was to drift,

How hard it is to return.

Buddhism, the Only Migrating Religion

     Among the major world religions, Buddhism has the distinction of being the only one capable of migrating from its foreign land and blending in with indigenous beliefs.  It began in India, yet the country largely practices Hinduism.  It migrated to China and Japan, where it diffused with earlier religions like Taoism, Confucianism, and Shinto.  Only in southeast Asia does it seem to have completely uprooted native beliefs.

     Other religions are incomparable.  Hinduism never made out of India.  The three monotheistic giants all maintain a strong presence in their homeland, despite the diaspora of the Jews, the holy mandates of the Muslims, and the gospels of Christ which entice one to spread the faith.  Though these religions have scattered widely, they usually maintain a powerful influence in any territory that accepts them, completely eradicating the previous faith, such as Zoroastrianism in Persia, or any of a number of pagan beliefs in the New World and beyond.  Only does Judaism seem to diffuse the way Buddhism does, but it has never managed to claim the majority of a population.

    While Christian and Islamic strangleholds can easily be explained by political congruence, Hinduism can't.  There was abject stubbornness in India to cling to its original mythology, which is unique among religions itself.  Buddhism though has such widespread appeal that its diffusion becomes inevitable in places where politics and religion aren't so intimately tied with each other.  Furthermore, Buddhism's toleration of other beliefs has done well for its survival in distant lands.  Thus it is the only truly migrating world religion.

Refresh Heart

Weeping heart consumed by petals,

Pink as the fringes of a rose,

It beats in tune with rejection and remorse,

Twin demons that haunt what it became.

Bloom of youth that lost its beauty

Retracted inward the utopian joy,

Shrank the wonder it once held sacred

Until the flower cocooned into a shell. 

The beating slowed, the world got smaller,

Turning inward the folds drew memory,

Fragments of art to imitate release,

Retreating from expressions of glamor.

The heart sunk soul-ward that ate itself,

Fanning flames that denied innocence,

Built a fantasy of scattered wishes

That burst forth to the other side.

Only then did it realize how important

It was to be true, courageous in battle,

Unfrightened of the consequences,

Glowing fiercely in the solar nursery.

Butterfly Monsoon

Through the trees they swoon you like a monsoon,

Covering the valley in blue-winged snowflakes.

They're everywhere, flapping and fluttering,

Glazing the land in delftware, or Santorini steeples,

Blown through the mistral past the lost horizon,

The light distorted, senses failing, a wonder summoned

By your weary eyes of fortune, young one,

My son, my sleepy son, laying lazily in my arms.

Entering darkness they come into your eyes,

Obsidian gateways to an enchanted heart,

Draining into a phantasm you stole from the world,

Butterflies wrapped in bows and ribbons, trapped

Behind the shutters when you closed them,

As they stole your soul from me,

Off into some inaccessible oblivion.

Now beneath the water you see them,

Wings ripped by currents, shadows severed,

Ambient imperium of heaven alight,

Contrails of the sky train you took last night.

Swarming your thoughts, you only see blue,

Softly swaying in my arms holding you tight,

Bathed in blue, the curtain parting,

You see my face as you wake with a start,

Purified breath of change, becoming blue.

Sheikh Zayed

Glorified marble of the Middle East,

How elegant you stand on the Arabian heel.

Your bubbling domes kiss the sky,

A whiteness so pure, to resemble where they reach,

Heaven's protection over a porcelain sea.

Your columns stand on a milky sheet

Lacquered in bejeweled patterns,

An overflowing of beauty flooding the courtyard

From the golden angles of your interior.

Gold, white, gold, white,

Say your prayers to the light,

Praise be to Allah and all that's right.

Swarm Intelligence

Bloated CPU of starchy threads,

Slime of ancient earthen inheritance,

Community of woven entanglement,

Capturing memory, observation, inference,

Each portal a digital vault

Reckoning the matrix of behavior,

Threads of necessity gluing the axons,

Mark of Thoth projecting patterns,

Submission to Nature, the eternal seamstress.

The mind is a hive, an insectile construct,

Meninges of beeswax that molds wrinkles,

Honey of synapse that cables signals,

Quantum receptor of dendritic hexagons

Stimulating consciousness, a collective awareness,

The whole rendered superior to its parts,

Each neuron a soldier for survival,

Like a bee, unable to do so on its own.

The Method

Alone he fingerprinted the logos,

Patented a discourse on discovery, 

Rejected suspicions for doctrines of certainty,

Elevated his science to godhood.

From complexity the simplest forms

Analyzed by deduction of proofs

Converged into a tireless whole,

A grand machine of the cosmos,

A kaleidoscopic program built from smithereens,

Each operation a heartbeat for the rest.

Those inherent proofs, those silver certainties,

Unstained by skepticism, sturdy by reduction,

Obvious to any sensory system-

The digit, the line, the circle-

Grafted the gears of higher operations,

These tools of math aspiring construction,

Metaphysical forms becoming real

From each hidden connection.

A design was clear, a universe of spirals,

Everything in harmonic movement,

Built on foundations of geometry-

Reason the holy token for attainment,

Truth derived from a mechanical gospel.

Now he can rest, his life complete,

The world turning with his system,

Fragmented coordinates ejected from a dream,

An algebra that distorted the shapes,

Bending time, space, energy, to the will of man.