Explaining the Drought

A logical search for a nexus

For drought’s kick in our solar plexus

Shows prayer’s not performing:

Either there’s global warming

Or else God hates Rick Perry and Texas.

True Belief

When people try to block out

Others' views, they can get too devout:

Their ferocious zest

Suggests they’ve suppressed

The intensity of their own doubt.

Trolls

Trolls used to be a good pretense
For fun, and for testing what made sense;
But now they’re diversion
When we need immersion
In working our way to acceptance.

It’s a tired old worn-out cliche:
One should listen to what people say;
If we carefully weigh
A troll’s communique,
We learn to stay way far away.

Keystone XL Hotel

Well, since my energy left me,

I found a new place to dwell:

It’s down at the end

Of the world, my friend

At Keystone XL Hotel—

    It’s not humans only, baby,

    It’s not humans only, 

    It’s not only humans, that will die.

If you’d like to bid farewell

To the BAU carousel,

You still can find room

To cry in the gloom

At Keystone XL Hotel—

    It’s not humans only, baby,

    It’s not humans only,

    It’s not humans only, that will die. 

Both registered clientele,

And working staff personnel,

Are all dressed in black

'Cause we'll never come back

From Keystone XL Hotel—

    It’s not humans only, baby,

    It’s not humans only,

    It’s not humans only, that will die.

Now, if your energy leaves you,

And you got a tale to tell,

You'll find the end

Of the world, my friend,

At Keystone XL Hotel— 

    It’s not humans only, baby.

    It’s not humans only,

    It’s not humans only, that will die.

School bullying

The rich bully those with no jewels,

Large nations use war-making tools;

Those with stronger physique

Pick on those who are weak,

Including in playgrounds at schools.

Life Imitates Art

http://billhicksisdead.blogspot.com/2011/08/friday-rant-they-made-biographical.html

The movies often impart

Advice for guiding your heart;

These film creations

Provide illustrations

Of life imitating art.

Stores Are Closing

Payless, Stride Rite Closing 475 Stores
http://billhicksisdead.blogspot.com/2011/08/payless-stride-rite-closing-475-stores.html

Though it seems to have been indiscrete,

The shoe store once had something neat:

You could look on the screen

Of an x-ray machine

And see all the the bones in your feet.

Fracking

Fracking puts crap in the ground,
It’s environmentally unsound;
In the future, this feat
Would mean folks couldn’t eat
If any were still left around.

Oil’s like a big glass of beer

Oil’s like a big glass of beer,

It couldn’t be any more clear;

No one can deny

There’s a finite supply—

Once it's gone, it’s no longer here.

Cheap Nuclear Energy

We thought that nothing was sweeter

Till reactors began to teeter;

Turns out we’re all lost

Because of the cost

Of power too cheap to meter.

The Changing Consensus Trance

One reason we live in a trance

Is to ignore our low social stance,

To not see the borders

Of our pecking orders,
To not even give that a glance.

But in times of great social change,

We enlarge our insightful range;

The way we now live

Is beginning to give,

And starting to look somewhat strange.

We don’t know our rank will advance

When the new world the old one supplants;

The new chain of command

Might not be what we planned

In the new-formed consensus trance.

One, Two, Many Fukushimas

Nuclear plants make a mess

When events leave them powerless;

If cooling’s precarious,

It could set off various

Fukushimas around the U.S.

Tiny Earthquakes

A few tiny earthquakes unfurled

Are nothing to make your hair curled,

Unless you can see

That they might set free

Many big ones around the world.

Kubler-Ross User Guide

Just a few simple words for your jive,
To deniers who think they’ll survive;
These might do the trick,
And they're easy to pick:
'Cause with K-R, you've only got five:

Most common, of course, is denial,
For anger, we all can see bile;
A bargaining style,
Some depression awhile,
And acceptance completes our trial.

So try this out for assistance:
When people reject your persistence,
Recall Kubler-Ross
And tell them who’s boss:
They’re just manifesting resistance.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter

If you locate your doomer center,

You won’t remain a dissenter;

Doom cult costs the most:
You learn we’re all toast—
Abandon all hope, ye who enter.

Those codgers who think they’re so bright,
And who talk about doom day and night:
An old editorial
Since time immemorial—
But this time they’re going to be right.

It once seemed that we could depend
On forever as an unending trend;
While that turned out naive,
It's still strange to believe
That our species will come to an end.

The leopard does what leopards do,
We humans must do our thing too;
So have no regrets,
It’s as good as it gets,
And soon our time will be all through.

The way that our lives we have led,
And all that went on in our head—
How much does it matter
When poo starts to spatter
And humans will all end up dead?

Here’s a clue for those who are new:
Abandon all hope, say adieu;
For humans, life’s through,
Get used to that view—
You won't feel O.K. till you do.

We’re #1

Woo hoo! I am man. Hear me say:
I’m the top of the food chain today;
Watch out where you stray,
You might become prey
‘Cause I kill anything in my way.

It’s one-sided to think that we caved
In approving a world that’s depraved;
The comfort and pleasure
We get from our leisure
Are exactly the things that we craved.

We live under a cursed oath
Which nurtures and dooms us, both;
We harbor a drive
To struggle and strive
For improvement, enhancement—and growth.

Approaches to therapy

When trying to “get” this world’s mess
It’s good not to over-obsess.
Refrain from confusing,
And think about using
The acronym KISS.

When will the internet peak?
Before it becomes an antique,
We’d best do what we can
To firm up our plan
For doom, while we can still speak.

We naturally want to delay
The enormity of our dismay,
But therapists say:
With pain first prepay
To make peace with what’s headed our way.

Recovery, for peak oil, perhaps
(And needed to prevent a relapse),
Seems perfectly fitted:
Step 1 - We admitted
We were powerless over collapse.

If you want to cut down on your gloom,
Weave wind on a large verbal loom.
It’ll use up your RAM,
Your brain will then jam;
It’s one way to block out the doom.

If you find that your self-view is shaming,
That’s simple to fix by renaming;
Or, in technical terms,
Your ego confirms
It likes itself more by reframing.

Some experts insist it’s the case,
Rage habits get hard to erase;
But others suggest
Get things off your chest--
For them, now’s the right time and place.

For when things become really rough,
We’ll want things to drink, eat, and puff.
A good thing to do
To help pull us through;
We can’t have enough of that stuff.

Before you get any distraughter,
Think: How do you wait for the slaughter?
Zen master serene,
If asked of this scene
Would answer: “Chop wood, carry water.”

At some point in our critique
Cognitive dissonance should peak;
Maybe while we obsess
Our anxiety’s less
A little bit each time we speak.

For help with a different perspective,
A larger view might be effective:
From a cosmic view point,
There is no disjoint—
That’s just humans being subjective.

Cognitive Dissonance

With animals one usually finds
They fit in their groups of all kinds;
The self as a notion
Puts conflict in motion:
Our problem’s not tribes, but minds.

Between two worlds, out on the fence,
Our transition gets sometimes intense;
This is not from split mind—
Schizophrenia kind,
But sane cognitive dissonance.

When reality seems like a curse,
Distortion can turn out adverse:
While hope springs eternal,
If doom stays external,
Cognitive dissonance gets worse.

Cognitive dissonance will thrive
As we do the doomer dive;
When might makes right,
What once was wrong might
Become suddenly right to survive.

Projection

Whom to blame? Let’s do some reflection:
In selection for our collection,
We hide from detection
Our secret rejection,
The connection that’s called “projection.”

When we want to kill we decree
That we’re good, and they’re bad guys, you see;
For guiltless abuses
Chimps don't make excuses
But they act just the same as do we.

Scapegoating’s what humans do,
It’s focused on outnumbered few;
This is our norm,
We’ll never transform
And some folks are going to hate you.

In a make-believe world, it’s correct
That the news would be what you project,
But not if you’ve checked
How the world’s really wrecked—
It changes what you expect.

We look up to president or czar,
‘Cause we think of our parents afar,
Plus some wishful finance
And consensual trance—
We think they’re much better than they are.

To ignore face-to-face debasement,
We look for some distant replacement;
We then give a pass
To those kicking our ass,
And that’s what we call “displacement.”

Upon some closer inspection,
Hostility has a connection:
Angry debasement
Is often displacement
And even more often projection.

Early humans likely knew how
To relate more as I and Thou
With animals and plants;
In a different trance,
Their lives weren’t like ours are now.

This is your brain on doom

Molecules bounce, one by one,
Making blame something much overdone;
To increase serenity:
Escape your identity
And find that our choices are none.

All we do, as living earth critters,
Is be moved escape our jitters;
We aim for what glitters
And, if we’re not quitters,
We alter our neurotransmitters.

Our brains are neurons a-blinking,
Mostly animal non-verbal linking;
Things like persecution
Come from old evolution
And not from logical thinking.

Amebas try to avoid
Noxious stimuli—they get “annoyed”,
Much as every mutation
Reacts to sensation
And will, till we all are destroyed.

Since life began to expand
Undersea, and later on land,
What caused us to thrive:
We evolved to survive,
Not to know or to understand.

More About Yeast

When you’re figuring out what is true
And the answer is long overdue,
To think something new
(They’re smarter than you)
Just ask, “What would yeast cells do?”

We all have been part of the beast,
Though most have been thoroughly fleeced.
Inability to grow
Makes people say “D’oh!”
It’s true: we’re no smarter than yeast.

Consider the Petri-made dish
As source for our veggies and fish:
Once we all sup
No one fills it back up,
No matter how hard you might wish.

The yeast cells’ resources were nil,
And with no way that they could refill,
Of course they got ill,
Then became very still—
Exactly the way that we will.

Some yeast found their way into beer
Thinking that was a better career;
They got drunk as a skunk,
Told the dish cells they stunk,
But their exit was just as severe.

The yeast cells thought they might make do,
But then temperature rise did ensue;
Incubator heat
Burnt up what they eat,
Concurrently frying them too.

If true global warming’s released,
The Arctic won’t be any feast;
Aside from the heat,
There’ll be nothing to eat
And we’ll end up the same as the yeast.

When the Sixth Great Extinction’s released,
Complex animals will be decreased;
At that point one may
Be able to say
The emerging “culture” is yeast.

The cells performed many a feat,
And “decided” things, in their conceit—
Like what’s beyond the dome
Of the dish they called home—
But they couldn’t decide not to eat.

The yeast cells were piled to the wall
As they argued the cause of their fall;
What made it all moot?
Pesky overshoot!
Nothing else mattered at all.

The two dishes sat side by side,
In one, the capitalists vied;
The other, distinct,
Was where socialists linked,
But in both, the yeast cells all died.

No wrong that needed apology,
Nor virtue, despite mythology;
They were just expression
Of life's succession
In the Petri dish ecology.

The yeast cells just ate from their plate,
While humans had learned to debate;
Turned out nothing mattered:
As soon as poo splattered,
They all were swept straight to their fate.

And complexity won’t save the day,
When a simple point serves to dismay;
With carbon all around
And not still in the ground
Like the yeast, we'll have no more buffet.

There are none to exalt nor assault
As we wait for our burial vault.
We had a fine feast
But remember, we’re yeast.
The truth is: it’s nobody’s fault.

When complex thoughts in my mind swish,
And answers don’t come though I fish,
I don’t go astray,
It’s simpler to say:
“Remember the petri dish!”

==

And here's a little yeast fable

To read while we are still able:

http://benjaminthedonkey-limericksofdoom.blogspot.com/2011/08/yeast-cells.html

Understanding Peak Oil Takes Time

The people who give you “that stare”
When you try to make them aware—
Their doom hasn’t hit yet
So they don’t get upset
And for now, they simply don’t care.

For teaching and having minds turn,
The time left should be of concern;
It is hard to bestow
Understanding PO
When it took us much longer to learn.

Peak oil study’s long, you will find,
‘Cause there’s so many facts intertwined;
With that is combined:
You need time to unwind,
Or you’d probably lose your mind.

If you’re saving-the-world obsessed,
And your warning’s not being addressed,
Think how learning your quest
Took awhile to digest,
And then lie down and take a nice rest.

Radioactivity

There's many routes to lethal rout,
But one thing there’s no doubt about:
Our world, once attractive,
We’ll leave radioactive—
And there's absolutely no way out.

Our intelligent innovation—
New elements with radiation—
Does not seem so smart
When you see it's a part
Of our premature termination.

With bombs and reactors we’ve topped
The food chain, and all we co-opt;
Now we are captive
To a world radioactive
‘Cause Judgment Day cannot be stopped. 

We've not yet learned being resolved more
To clean up this deadly unsolved chore,
But that’s not astounding:
Radioactive surrounding
Is not the world which we evolved for.

We know that the grid will soon fail,
Causing radioactive travail;
We can end life creation,
But our radiation
Will keep on spreading death, and prevail.

If reactors aren’t shut down posthaste
And fuel rods deeply encased,
Prepare for “Bye bye”
‘Cause we’re likely to die
In hot radioactive waste.

Reflections

We thought our uniqueness would soar
Over other life forevermore;
But we’ll lose that distinction
In the Sixth Great Extinction
Which never has happened before.

               *          *          *

It gets harder to use straight denying
That we’ll starve, or perhaps end up frying;
But as life goes awry,
We can still give a try
To laugh till we can’t keep from crying.

               *          *          *

Our high evolutionary berth
Came about ‘cause our heads had great girth;
Still, our feelings transcend,
So this is the end
Of intelligent life on earth.

               *          *          *

Peak oil means collapse for sure,

Which some primitive tribes might endure;
But add on the heat,
And then nothing to eat—
There’s absolutely no cure.

               *          *          *

By not seeing all life’s brutality,
We evolved better functionality,
Making horrors you see
Inside you and me
Not cynicism, but reality.

               *          *          *

In order to eat, you compete,
Foster trust, then unfairly mistreat;
Act real kind when you greet
Folks you meet on the street,
But survival works best if you cheat.

               *          *          *

Who cares if it’s law of the nation?
The people who rule by predation
Will corner their prey,
And then simply say:
“We don’t need no stinking legislation.”

               *          *          *

Like chicken or rare roast beef,
Whether garnished with booze or with kief,
In the cannibal game
We’ll all taste much the same
Regardless of hue or belief.

               *          *          *

We’ve done things we cannot undo
Where other smart things also grew;
No habeus corpus
For dolphin or porpoise—
We’ll be the death of them too. 

               *          *          *

It’s the end of the whole human race,
We soon won’t leave even a trace;
The earth will erase
Every work and embrace
When we’re gone from the vastness of space.

               *          *          *

There’s nothing like experience, they say,
And wallowing in doom every day
Makes us more accepting
Of what we’re expecting,
Or, some would say, way too blasé.

               *          *          *

We must have evolved to hope—
Survivors didn’t sit around and mope;
While hope helped folks cope
Through many a downslope,
What’s coming is larger in scope. 

               *          *          *

At what point do we know to commit
To a world unlike what we’ve just quit?
Though the future is blurry,
On this point, don’t worry:
It happens by itself, bit by bit.

               *          *          *

Where to be, is where you accept
That for saving ourselves we’re inept;
As to what you should be,
Many here will agree
That by now you should be pretty much prepped.

               *          *          *

We can argue about when and how
The time will come for our last bow;
Our clock’s final chime
Could come any time—
So I ask: are you ready right now?

Kubler-Ross

I’m working the steps, I still strive
To get used to not being alive;
With my friend Kubler-Ross,
I’m dealing with loss
While aiming for Step #5.

               *          *          *

It’s simple, how she comes across,
And she helps with our oncoming loss
Which we know very well
Is going to be hell;
That’s why I like Kubler-Ross.

               *          *          *

Denial’s a limited view,
And bargaining won’t become true;
Depression is sad
But when people get mad,
Watch out for that anger Stage 2.

               *          *          *

When Stage 2 exacerbates hate,
Folks seek targets weak to berate;
They line up allies
As wartime supplies,
And vainly hope they’ll avoid fate.

               *          *          *

The doomer mind tries to engage
With the end of the fossil fuel age;
An attempt to distract
With reprieve through some act
Sounds a bit like the bargaining stage.

               *          *          *

The time to have acted has passed”
Won’t slow down what’s bound to come fast;
By a Kubler-Ross gauge,
It’s the bargaining stage
When we think we can change what’s precast.

               *          *          *

If you’re looking for mental floss
And you think that most theory is dross,
When it’s time to play taps
As you deal with collapse,
Just pick up on Kubler-Ross.

Accepting Collapse

We’ve conquered much of our fear,
And accepted the ending is near;
We’ve taken big steps,
But aside from our preps,
Where do we go from here?

We lived in an upward trend,
There was nothing we couldn’t transcend;
We did not comprehend
We could also descend
Or that progress could come to an end.

When extinction hits all humankind,
Our achievements of body and mind
Will be recombined
With the earth, and you’ll find
There won’t be a trace left behind.

Society took on a new hue
After peaking: advancement was through;
All things will get worse
As we shift to reverse
With no future to look forward to.

It’s not just those long in the tooth,
But because of doom, also the youth
Who haven’t much time
To muse on the sublime
And if they can handle the truth.

I’m sorry, it won’t help to rail
Against haters who want us to fail;
To become fully prepped
Means we have to accept
That reason will not prevail.

The people with most of the pie
Want to maintain the oil party high;
Let them carry the ball,
I'm not worried at all:
They have more to lose than do I.

Tyranny lowers the bar
In language and symbols afar;
Look closer and see
It’s inside you and me,
And won’t change because that’s who we are.

A world in which meaning is nil,
And daily, things go more downhill,
Could make someone glum
And think doom will come
Somewhat sooner than it really will.

When some see there’s nowhere to run,
They decide to go out and have fun;
Others work to get done
The preps they’ve begun,
And some end up using a gun.

When the world is changing to rubble
And problems repeatedly double,
We’ll see folks, no doubt,
Take the easy way out
Because that’s the end of their trouble.

Each of us, we can’t forestall
When our treadmill’s too fast, and we fall;
So the end of our romp
Is a body slam THWOMP,
The belt sweeps us away, and that’s all.

Eternally hope springs its thrall,
But we know full well we’ll hit the wall;
Perhaps a vaccine
To make us serene
Is accepting there’s no hope at all.

Regarding the peak human question,
Here is my personal suggestion:
No morals involved,
Or problems to be solved;
It’s ecological succession.

It’s normal to conquer despair
By looking hard for what’s not there;
But using delusion
Results in confusion
If you still want to think life is fair.

“The time to have acted has passed,”
IOW, the die has been cast;
So sit back and relax,
Have a drink and some snacks—
We can’t stop what’s coming here fast.

If you’re asked what defense to employ
(Granting that this may annoy),
Say, “The answer’s quite clear,
Get popcorn and beer,
Then find a nice chair, and enjoy.”

When there is no psychiatrist

We’ve conquered much of our fear,
And accepted the ending is near;
We’ve taken big steps,
But aside from our preps,
Where do we go from here?

We lived in an upward trend,
There was nothing we couldn’t transcend;
We did not comprehend
We could also descend
Or that progress could come to an end.

When extinction hits all humankind,
Our achievements of body and mind
Will be recombined
With the earth, and you’ll find
There won’t be a trace left behind.

Society took on a new hue
After peaking: advancement was through;
All things will get worse
As we shift to reverse
With no future to look forward to.

It’s not just those long in the tooth,
But because of doom, also the youth
Who haven’t much time
To muse on the sublime
And if they can handle the truth.

I’m sorry, it won’t help to rail
Against haters who want us to fail;
To become fully prepped
Means we have to accept
That reason will not prevail.

The people with most of the pie
Want to maintain the oil party high;
Let them carry the ball,
I'm not worried at all:
They have more to lose than do I.

Tyranny lowers the bar
In language and symbols afar;
Look closer and see
It’s inside you and me,
And won’t change because that’s who we are.

A world in which meaning is nil,
And daily, things go more downhill,
Could make someone glum
And think doom will come
Somewhat sooner than it really will.

When some see there’s nowhere to run,
They decide to go out and have fun;
Others work to get done
The preps they’ve begun,
And some end up using a gun.

When the world is changing to rubble
And problems repeatedly double,
We’ll see folks, no doubt,
Take the easy way out
Because that’s the end of their trouble.

Each of us, we can’t forestall
When our treadmill’s too fast, and we fall;
So the end of our romp
Is a body slam THWOMP,
The belt sweeps us away, and that’s all.

Eternally hope springs its thrall,
But we know full well we’ll hit the wall;
Perhaps a vaccine
To make us serene
Is accepting there’s no hope at all.

Regarding the peak human question,
Here is my personal suggestion:
No morals involved,
Or problems to be solved;
It’s ecological succession.

It’s normal to conquer despair
By looking hard for what’s not there;
But using delusion
Results in confusion
If you still want to think life is fair.

“The time to have acted has passed,”
IOW, the die has been cast;
So sit back and relax,
Have a drink and some snacks—
We can’t stop what’s coming here fast.

If you’re asked what defense to employ
(Granting that this may annoy),
Say, “The answer’s quite clear,
Get popcorn and beer,
Then find a nice chair, and enjoy.”

Diagnosing Doomers

To find out your diagnosis,

And even a likely prognosis:

If your head’s into doom,

Go ahead and assume

The answer will be psychosis.

For instance, consider IQ:

If you’ve ever heard of Baku,

Something’s wrong with your brain,

You must be insane,

Or at minimum, just feeling blue.

Or check out your Myers-Briggs type,

Narrowed down to your personal stripe;

Despite a facade,

Folks will think that you’re odd,

And someone at whom they can snipe.

And then there’s the MMPI,

Which will work till the world starts to fry;

It’s not just a quirk,

You’re completely berserk,

If it matters before we all die.

As the final door of doom shuts,

And everyone loses their butts,

For reasons climatic,

You’ll be symptomatic

And people will think that you’re nuts.

Group behavior

TRIBES

It’s hard jumping modern-day hoops:

We feel like we’re cowards and dupes;
Human history is long
And some feelings feel wrong

‘Cause we evolved to live in small groups.

Some believers might call it libel,

But the true economic Bible
Is what we evolved in:
To live with involved kin,

Within an arrangement that’s tribal.

The anthropologist describes

How we used to live in small tribes;
We evolved to fit there
With the least wear and tear—
A bigger scene gives us bad vibes.

Single tribe populations
Follow one leader’s inspirations;
No common cause meeting
Comes from global competing

Tribal identifications.

Socialization prescribes

That one’s group has the only good vibes;
Now where be your gibes?
Well, let’s ask our scribes:

You displace them onto other tribes.

Scapegoating’s what humans do,

It’s focused on outnumbered few;
This is our norm,
We’ll never transform

And some folks are going to hate you.

Projection is one of those themes

Which have shown up since ancient regimes;
With allies, our schemes
Become obscene dreams

While for big fights we choose up big teams.

To which group do you think you belong?

Choose up sides, and hope yours is strong;
Then join in a fight:
You’ll always be right,

And the other side totally wrong.



WE’RE ANIMALS

Let’s take a more accurate view,

Much below angels which we construe:
We’re not quite so sweet
Competing to eat,
But that’s simply what animals do.

We live eating life which we slew,
Often leaving a mess when we’re through;
But it must be O.K.,
Behaving that way

Because animals do that too. 



DOMINANCE

"The Primitive Law of Man":

The alpha guy maintains the clan;
Religious coercion,
More forceful assertion—

How strange old societies ran!

The new “greed is good” revelation

Turns out to include domination;
It sounds not so nice
When being precise:

More than greed, it’s exploitation.

Both robots and corporations have flaws,

But they’re different, and that is because
Robots are machines,
While corporate screens
Hide people who rule behind laws.

They’re busy, studying their charts,
To find demographic weak parts;
Then they’ll focus all blame
On those whom they’ll frame

Before undisguised killing starts.

Now listen to me, and agree,

God’s and Nature’s laws I do decree;
Take care you obey!
And oh, by the way,

The rules are for you, not for me.

If you’d like to discard tribal law

And imagine you’ll like nature raw,
Please don’t forget
There’s also some threat

From Nature, red in tooth and in claw.



MIGHT MAKES RIGHT

It’s nice to be nice, of course,

But talk alone just makes you hoarse;
From the time that we’re born
Till when relatives mourn,
It’s all is based on physical force.

Brains vs. brawn is now chatter,
But after the poo starts to splatter,
And when might makes right,
It’s not so polite.

If you don’t have the brawn, it won’t matter.

And this is the saddest of all

As intellect proceeds to pall:
We’ll worsen our plight
As brute might makes right

In civilization's fall.



LORD OF THE FLIES

Consider the Lord of the Flies
Before we all say our goodbyes;
The difference is clear:
No grownup comes here
To stop to stop everybody’s demise.

The world’s like a great big playground,

Where oftentimes bullies are found;
Based on what I have learned, 
I’m very concerned
That we don’t have a teacher around.



WHAT’S CRAZY?

Our social self, which we all feign,
Evolved right along with our brain,
So we must derive
It helped us survive;
Then what do we mean by insane?

When madness is put on a scale,
The tribe’s shaman decides what is fail—
After consultation
With gods of creation
And advice from the tribe’s alpha male.

Sanity’s defined by the norm,
So there’s pressure on you to conform;
You’re crazy? That’s rumors.
Hang here with your doomers

And watch from the eye of the storm.



WHAT IS

When I hear about any new Zen,

I get deja vu once again;
In the sixties we tried
That same giddy ride,

And our chances were much better then.

If you’re asking which course to pursue,

Evolution says we’re almost through;
In the great cosmic game
Things will end up the same

No matter whatever you do.

The ant counseled food preservation,

But the grasshopper chose celebration;
When global starvation
Kindled conflagration,

They both got a burning sensation.

An alternate world is a spot

Where we’d like to escape but cannot;
What we actually know
Shows us nowhere to go,

So we’re stuck in the world that we’ve got.



EQUALITY IS COMING

Stored up wealth, since times agrarian,

Led to power totalitarian;
In just a short while
A subsistence lifestyle
Will make us more egalitarian.

Together we wonder, “How soon
Will we be down to rags and a spoon?”
So let’s make that link
And all raise a drink

To a supportive online commune.