Monday Poem

Trying to make Sense of Red —A Tennessee Cleanup Its janitors are sweeping up its sins— senators are on the floor with whisks and fine-toothed combs. They crawl and sift, scooping, collecting photographs of those they’ve lynched they cram them into rubbish bins —before their kids get wind they ban   their two-faced history, they ban  …

Monday Poem

Chuang Tzu’s Butterfly “Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhuangzi. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do…

Monday Poem

Betta Than Meta Here’s an idea: in FB scroll down at say a post a second —keep on keeping on (maybe Meta’s your thing) find your groove, lose yourself in avatars and memes, get a timely sense of your milieu, what you’re enmeshed in now, good or ill, a scroll of streaming truth, or not, soundless, unless you hum a…

Monday Poem

“But in 2500 B.C. Harappa, who cast in bronze a servant girl? No one keeps records of soldiers and slaves.” … —from At the Museum, by Agha Shahid Ali In Jerusalem I’ve learned a new word: asafoetida, or asafetida, which is a gum ground from Near Eastern plants of the genus Ferula which smells fetid …. and was used once…

Monday Poem

….—on a cartoon by Harry Bliss ..Yes, But . . . … It’s … a mixed bag ….a contentious thought ….a hard truth ….a contradiction of emotions ….a matter of time ….a bittersweet line ….a fickle notion ….a double standard ….a salve ….a remedial lotion ….a half-truth ….a deep and restless ocean Jim Culleny, 2/25/23…

Monday Poem

The Hindu image of Anantashayana portrays the god Vishnu reclining upon a coiled snake upon a raft floating in a sea of milk dreaming up the universe Until the Sacred Cows Come Home Vishnu reclines and sleeps dreaming up the world ………………………….. He lounges upon a coiled snake in the image of ananta shayana floating on…

Monday Poem

‘Scuze Me for Being Cynical Media (movies, news, tv), does not mediate, and often obfuscates, it dilates, though some do legitimately investigate, producing news upon which we are left to ruminate, and so, the public often oscillates and vacillates —but sly and foxy news, well, just prevaricates, creates fantasies that stuff its banks, which some…