That’s What Fiends Are For
By
Li von Garske
Historical Note:
This happened in the early I980’s. There was NO INTERNET, NO WORLD WIDE WEB. Home computers had 64k or I28K. NONE had megabytes, or higher. To reach another state, one had to use a special MODEM on the phone and pay for the long-distance call.
Something about the author:
The author was a fan of computer animation, and of video, and therefore despised such perversions of the art as MTV and The Simpsons. This off-beat author was inclined to spend a good deal of time underwater along the Kona coast, hobnobbing with creatures far stronger than any you’d meet at the Star Wars Cantina.
I say WAS because while downloading some old language tapes, there was an accidental incantation and nothing has been the same since. But read on, you’ll see what I mean.
Ed
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A-Z Poetry
Table of Contents
A is for Anarchist (My Brother Milosh) ………………………3
B is for Beauty (Beauty is a By-product)……………………..4
C is for City (Citi-scape)……………………………………………5
D is for Dinosaur (Dinosaur Egg)………………………………6
E is for Eve (Eva)……………………………………………………..7
F is for Firefly (One Ordinary Night with Fireflies)……..8
G is for Gong (The Bamboo Gong)…………………………….10
H is for Homo Sapiens (Homo Sapiens Sapiens)………..11
I is for IN (In Words of One Syllable)………………………..12
J is for June (Summers Then)…………………………………..13
K is for Kindred ( Kindred Spirit)……………………………..14
L is for Last (My Last Pub Crawl)……………………………..15
M is for Misc. (Miscegenation)…………………………………16
N is for Neolithic (View through A Shattered Window).17
O is for OUT (Way Out) (Love Song in Space/Time)…..18
P is for Parents (Fringe Benefits)………………………………19
Q is for Quark (The Hunting of The Quark)……………….20
R is for RAIN (Rainforest)……………………………………….23
S is for Summer (Summer Street)…………………………….24
T is for Terror (TERROR-ist)…………………………………..26
U is for Unicorn (Unicorns)…………………………………….27
V is for Volcano (Early Morning On The Volcano)…….28
W is for Words (Handle WIth Care)………………………..29
X is for Xenophobia (Mixed Marriage)…………………….30
Y is for Youth (Youth Is Always Amazed)…………………31
Z is for Zen (ZEN…(Haiku))……………………………………32
Zen
ZEN
Looking eastward for enlightenment
I saw, far away,
my own back
Youth
Youth Is Always Amazed
The other people have trod
The byways that their minds
Have just discovered.
I wonder where they think
Those Hyways and Byways came from
If not from their lovers
Of those ideas?
Other minds like other foot-falls
Gone before
To wear the path.
The first thought-fall
On any endeavor
Must surely have ran
From the first brain to think
In the very first human.
Xenophobia
Mixed Marriage
Bred in the bone
Of every man
Is fear of the stranger
Love the clan!
The battle cry has always been
Screw their women
Kill the men!
By choosing a man with a stranger’s face
You castrate your entire race
You say, in effect, for all to see
That none of your kind are as good as he
And raise a primal rage.
And what of Him?
The same applies
He’s saying in another guise
His women can’t compare with you
They’ll say he’s invoking the ancient rule
Which turns the insult back to you.
So follow your hearts
If needs you must
Do whatever you must
But understand and don’t resent
The faces turned away from you
When neither clan will rest content
With the mortal insult you present.
Words
Handle With Care
1. WORDS
RUN OUR WORLD
NOTHING STRONGER
EXISTS
IN EARTH.
FOR BETTER
OR WORSE
OUR BLESSING
OUR CURSE
WORDS
2. WORDS
EXPRESSING THE SOUL
DEFINING DEATH
LIFE
LAUGHTER
EVEN
THE HEREAFTER.
3. WORDS
BURNISHED BRIGHT
GLEAMING IN THE MIND’S EYE
REMINISCENT ROSE
AROMATIC CHANGE
POIGNANT PURPLE
RAGING RED
GRACIOUS GREEN
WINTRY WHITE
4. WORDS
PSYCHIC SWORDS
SIGNIFICANTLY SHARP
SLIENTLY SPLITTING
ENSORCELLED HEARTS
LETTING RUN
TOGETHER AND APART
ALL OF THE COLORS
OF THE SPECTRUM
5. WORDS
DOUBLE-EDGED
FINELY HONED
AWESOMELY BEAUTIFUL
BELLTONED
CALLING THE DUTIFUL
TO LOVE OR WAR
AND MORE
BEWARE THE MASTER OF WORDS!
Volcano
Early Morning On The Volcano
Even 2,000 feet up
it was going to be a hot day
for a procession
but the climate allowed no delay.
The six of us, stripping to the waist,
each took our turn at ripping up
the peace of the new born day
with the pneumatic tripping
of our jack-hammer.
Under attack, the black lava
Did not tremble. It persisted.
Though dead, it resisted
every blow of the chisel
It was unfriendly labor
though done in friendship.
We shattered the peace so one of our number
could rest in Peace.
But we ruined the morning hymns
of a distant woods dove,
and each had time to wonder,
We who live on the volcano,
when our turn would come
to go under.
Unicorn
Unicorns
I
know a
unicorn likes to
disappear. As
they can sense
your thoughts at
any time it’s easy.
I am hiding too.
Can you guess
why I’m not in
view?
Terror
TERROR – ist
They freed us from King and God alike
We felt the need of shedding light
In a limitless new reality.
We turned to the Scribe
But he and his tribe
Were exploring the back of the cave
With no time to save the new totality.
We asked of the poet
Whose gift of rhyme has stirred the pulse
Through all of time
And his crime was to give us mysteries
Instead of morality
Who will furnish the light
To serve as a beacon at the mouth of the cave
For those who weaken to steer by?
The artists? Well, they
Are painting their own interiors
Or serving non-human superiors
Today
We turned to Science, newly enthroned
In computerized towers of powers unknown
But the light they shed was cold and blue
Not a thing by which to gather and sing
In a dark land
Oh the Shaman still calls
With collection plate and neon hat brim
But there are strings to him
So here we stand
Unfashionably human
Alone and Mute
Raging like brutes without illume
But we’ll find a way
And they
Will Pay!
Summer
Summer Street
It was a city street,
Comfortably middle-aged without being rundown.
Not wealthy enough to have brick houses
But solid horizontal siding
Overlapped against Winter’s strength.
No one ever got a sliver from them.
Well cared for houses are well-behaved
And their edges are rounded with biennial layers
Of dignified color, with white trim.
Most were narrowed, single-familied, two-storied
Standing in mirrored pairs, flanking double driveways,
Pale grey, white, or the more daring beige.
There were a few older houses,
And a number of two-family flats
With long verandas both upstairs and down.
Back yards had just room enough for the clotheslines,
And, beyond the concrete, a row of Hollyhocks
Against the wall that hid the alley.
Front yards were only tiny squares of lawn
And at the curb, a strip too narrow for trees,
Sometimes both were cemented over.
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