The Coffee Bean
I long for the days when I grew wild and free,
the days when the humans just liked to drink tea!
I’d ripen in sunshine, then fall to the ground:
by dying and drying my life would rebound.
From inside my shell I would send forth a sprout,
and after some seasons I’d be free to tout
a bush full of offspring all looking like me.
Beans, coffee beans, yes, a real family tree!
But woe to me now as I’m looking around,
trapped in glass grinder about to be ground
and put in some basket and scalded to death
with no chance to sprout or to leave a bequest!
A beverage most humans don’t think twice about,
unless by poor planning they must do without …
but please think of me who was once wild and free,
and free me by switching and drinking just tea.
Restore the Castrated Gelding
Tales of lions, ships and hobbits still live
in aspiring hearts of all creative.
Yet, there’s a breed of man who cannot see
the use, the sense, the reason of mystery.
“The world is of fact, logic and ledger;
sublimate dreams to what we can measure!”
To such all of men’s Committees evolve —
feelings and visions on paper dissolve.
Oh! Lions, they roar and ships they do soar;
Hobbits’ adventures – reality lore!
Guess ye clear now to where we are heading?
Rise now! Restore the castrated gelding!
Yet what is real is not frozen in notes,
the sort statisticians are apt now to quote.
Truth is what lasts when what fire burns away
ascends to the throne where night is as day.
The following tale is as true as the quail
hollering “bobwhite” but never in sight;
as true as the saffron in the sunset —
a truth that will glow if will you but let!
An adventurer’s yarn to distant frontier;
an entrepreneur with nary a fear.
With fire in his heart to kindle a drive —
Discovery, yes, is ever alive.
Please, do not despair of rhyme and of verse,
condemning such talk to ride in the hearse;
the tale is much shorter, concise, compact —
honestly speaking, more fun to enact.
Enter now in the pages to follow;
come and explore an uncharted hollow!
With integrity, now, I’ll seek to unfold
the tale the Committee hopes never is
told!
Oh! Lions, they roar and ships they do soar;
Hobbits’ adventures – reality lore!
Guess ye clear now to where we are heading?
Rise now! Restore the castrated gelding!
“We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
– C.S. Lewis, Abolition of Man
A Tiny Little Man
He’s a tiny little man
though he’s over six feet tall
with a puny little job
but he acts like lord of all.
When he strides into the room
he expects from you respect
though to you he will give none
as he closely does inspect
every tiny little jot
of the work that he demands,
and if things are not just right
then out flies a reprimand.
Yes, we surely all desire
in the rubbish him to toss,
but we never have the nerve
‘cos that guy is still the boss.
Bob’s Proverb
It’s easier to defeat
a hostile enemy
Than a higher pay grade.
A Rumor
A rumor is like a mellifluous song.
It can be sung with gusto or heard as background music.
Either way, it can easily be summoned up with only the motif being plucked. Sometimes the strike of the tonic alone brings it with fullness to mind.
It is the easiest of all Name That Tune games.
Cause for Alarm
Her grandmother’s grandmother worked on a farm,
while her grandmother’s mother became a schoolmarm.
Her grandmother was a first woman in space
with whom her own mother continually raced.
The daughter, herself, was the cause for alarm
when she just decided to work on a farm.
Baron von Dael
Baron von Dael was a very greedy man – a very greedy man indeed;
but he hid his naughty vice from the foolish and the wise
by tithing all his wealth religiously.
But beyond this tepid token of his generosity,
the Baron never helped another soul.
Still, the Baron always said, “I pray the poor are fed!”
and “Fortune for myself is not the goal! O no!
Fortune for myself is not a goal!”
Now, the Preacher and the Doc and the Mayor and the Cop
were indebted to the Baron for their pay,
so the Baron called on them to be sure he’d always win
if a threat should ever dare to come his way.
It is thus that poor Gus does now enter in this tale,
for he made a food that very magic’ly
has the power in itself to multiply itself
so the buyer buys it once and then is free.
Free! Yes, O free from the pain of hunger’s grip
and free from sudden bell that death does ring.
But for Baron von Dael who does make his wealth through sale
of costly food that’s processed by machine,
the invention of poor Gus caused a mighty rotten fuss
in his profit-making fine food industry.
So the Baron did begin with fervor fast to spin
a web of sticky lies, and here they be:
The Cop said, “Gus is shady!”
as the Doc said, “He is crazy!”
while the Mayor said, “That Gus I cannot trust!”
Then the Preacher filled the air with a holy, reverent prayer,
“O dear Lord please keep such poison far from us!”
By the time that all these lies were thus sounded through the skies,
the food that Gus was making caused a scare!
So the food and recipe were both burned for all to see
and poor Gus was sent forever far from there.
But in a far off land where the people lend a hand
to anyone who travels in their way,
Gus freely made his food, and that nation quickly grew
to be the most ingenious of that day.
Baron von Dael was a very greedy man – a very greedy man indeed;
though he hid his naughty vice, Highland folk put him on ice
when they read this selfsame story that you read.
The moral of this tale is not one I can tell,
but here is why the Baron’s in his tomb:
Danger surely looms
when a poet’s in the room
because funny words on paper spell out doom
sometimes;
yes, funny words on paper spelled his doom.
on edge of woods
I am a lonely wanderer alone on edge of woods that form a fragile last defense ‘gainst urban neighborhood.
Through trees I watch a passing car – her jaw is set and raised; she speeds past with an urgency I knew in younger days. She’s got a meeting, then a date (her “ex” has got the kids). But after dinner, there’s no dance. She needs to shut her lids.
The faces through the trees I see do keep me walking on: they run the race of cold success which I am loath to join. I am one lonely wanderer, but I am not alone. Widows, prophets, poets know that edge of woods as home.
Leather Rose
(rap response to W.M. Blake)
O Rose, thou art frail: at the height of thy bloom thine Enemy seeks to hasten thy doom. So, constantly guard thy crimson delight and hold tight thy petals with all of thy might. The Enemy sniffs thy scent in the air; he salivates for a meal so fair.
But coming down path all dressed in green is striding a gardener, confidently. Pausing by another rose across from thee, he touches her petals and says he perceives that something so fragile, something so free, has no real defense from the Enemy. Something he holds in his gardener’s sack he says will repel most any attack. He only asks one thing of red rose – to let him now of thorns dispose, saying that thorns are no real defense against worms seeking a crimson tent.
With thorns removed, he begins the task of making each petal eternally last. From his sack he pulls a vile of tannin, a natural substance like vitamins; it’s used on horses – it takes their skin and turns it to rawhide (which is no sin). With tannin he paints each petal of the rose and turns them to leather so that each petal grows stronger and tougher, thick and wide, insuring that no worm can enter inside.
O Rose, thou dost see thy neighbor’s demise: exchanging her weakness for tanner’s dark dye! And now the gardener has thee in his view. He touches thy petal! What wilst thou do?
“You weed!” The gardener curses and cries! His blood’s on thy thorn, he spits in thine eye! Then cursing again he calls for the worm that flies in the night through the howling storm to enter thy chamber and riddle thee through, gnawing and chomping, exacting his due. Invisible worm with daggered eyes, how thinly veiled is your disguise! O Rose, to fend off one enemy invites the Foe of viler degree.
Thy neighbor of leather, unmoved by pain, smirkingly asks, “What is there to gain in jabbing the gardener, causing him pain? How can your temper be so untamed?!
Reply!” .
.. “Reply?!
If roses are red, then what is your hue as you’ve been tanning out in plain view? You call yourself rose with a leathery scent, but what’s in a name? O Shakespeare, lament! As for me, I stand with thorns in my side; the fact I’m a rose I dare not hide. If God meant a rose to be leathery and live saddled in security, I’d fain lose all thorns and leather become, but I’d be a whip and I’d crack till I’m numb.
“A rose I am, and a rose I’ll be, embroiled in the ageless mystery of beauty midst war which can’t be won – the worm finds a nest when each day is done.
Yet … “In standing, I’ve won.”
Lasting Labor
The work of our hands
and the labor of our minds
are worth far more
than a diamond-laden mine.
And when everything is done,
the labor that will last
is the miracle of life
to another gently passed.
A Call
A career is to a calling as a 401-K is to a sacrifice.
In the short term, all four expect you to give. However,
in the mid-term, careers and 401-Ks are measured by their reward,
while callings and sacrifices continue to be measured by
their cost. In the long term, you get what you pay for.
A Goal
Orchestrated unity is like a synthesized orchestra, which can
simulate many of the characteristics of the live orchestra.
While synthesized music is easier, more transportable, and fully
responsive to the composer, it is solely dependent on one person.
A live orchestra depends on the full cooperation of 50
highly talented individuals towards a recognized goal; unity is
not the goal, but a result of focusing on the goal together.
Vision
Vision is castrated by those who would seek to manage it.
Management is as far away from true leadership as is a
gelding from a stallion. From a distance, they can look
identical, but up close it is clear that the latter generates
life while the former only lives to keep itself alive.
A Chinese Blessing
May the waters of your toilet ever flush beneath you, but God forbid that they should ever rise to meet you!