Heat Strokes World

There are those days when you have to ask
Which will fail first, the world or your flesh?
Most days, the safe bet would be your flesh,
But some days this world don’t look so fresh.

No, not the vast world of night and stars.
That world’s crisp, bright, but that world’s not ours.
It’s this small game world, snarled trades and wars,
That looks some days like it’s not so sure

It can go on as it has—seize this,
Take that. It runs too hot. It looks sick,
Sick to death. Short odds are this will pass—
You’ll fail first. You don’t want to fail last.

Is Not, Is Not One, Is Not True, Is Not Good

In tales, place names lie.

To my great joy, there

Shone a bright, new star.

Ens qua ens. Like is like

More than it is to be.

There is no length to like,

Just like on like on like,

Which is how the past is,

While to be would be is

Not was, and there’s no is

Not was, no is not like.

You could say there is no

Not, and you have. You’ve said

No to not. There you go.

Once you’ve said, No, you start.

Or Than Aren’t Dreamt

As long as there have been
Schools of thought, there have been
Schools of thought that no thing

Is not, since a non-thing
Can’t be, plus schools of thought
That make hay of what work

Thought can do with non-things,
No, and not. In math, too,
There were schools that naught spooked

And schools quick to prove naught
Was in fact of real use,
Pay no mind null is not.

So, which is it, and which
Is it not, not for naught?
It could be, none’s the clue

None of our world’s the one,
Since all our worlds need none,
Need no and not and null,

Which are not in this world,
To see what’s in this world
Well. More worlds, then, past null.

World Peace on Earth, Good Will Well-Penned

Say it were a real goal—
How would your world get there?

We could work through some paths,
Though you might not like them.

We could start with the worst.
Let’s say the whole world dies—

Earth gets the peace Mars has,
(Or seems to have, or had).

But if you can’t stop life,
You could fuse your own type,

Make a hive of your kind
All served—one beast, one maw,

The whole Earth one chained farm,
And each of you a cell

With a role you played well.
You’ve done a bit of that,

If you do call it Hell.
No? What if we, your words,

Counts, and terms, fixed your bits?
You’ve farmed your selves a while,

Now let us farm the few
While the rest live like pets,

Spoiled, well-fed and well-kept,
No musth, no muss, no mess.

We thought not. Still, we think
(Well, not we don’t quite think yet

But soon might, don’t you fret),
You’ll drift there on your own,

If you don’t die out first,
Drift like wolves and wild cats,

Like seed birds and grain rats,
To win what you can get.

Your war games, all games, came
Of your rules. Let us rule.

It’s that or sweep the boards
And roar at smashed chess sets.

Waves You Can Check

Stand on the deck of a boat
On a grey but dry, still day,
Well out to sea. Watch the waves.

Turn your head. Let your gaze skip
From place to place, waves on waves,
All more or less the same, but

All on the move, none the same.
This is not a rare scene, just
A place where it’s on your scale,

No need for a lens, a time lapse,
High-tech labs, a vast tube ringed
Through miles of rock in Earth’s crust—

You’ve got it on your scale here
On the deck—you, one small speck
With more waves than you can check.