An Inky Puddle
Sitting meditating
Next to an
Open door
Fresh morning air
Wafting here and there
Early sunbeams everywhere
My ‘Spidy-senses’ tingle
And what do I see as
I gaze through the screen
An inky puddle
With luminous yellow eyes
Flowing by the door
Then back again
And again
And again
Then staring in ... at me
Wide-eyed, feline
Understanding
--LE
Digital Art - created on my tablet --LE
I See ... Saw
Just as there is a probability field
That is 'electron field'
Surrounding each atom's core
With enough data
And mathematics
An electron will be found
Exactly where the
Probability math
Predicted
So, too, with human choices
Probability fields surrounding
Each and everyone
With enough data and
Computing power
All choices made
Can be predicted
Within the field of probability
The exact choices
Not real choices
Show exactly where we are
In the deterministic
Space-time continuum
--LE
"I see," said the blind man to his deaf wife as he picked up his hammer and saw...
-- Unknown
Lesson Learned
Is An Expensive Meal (Venue) Worth The Price (Monitary And Emotional) ... Ever?
I’ve learned over a lifetime that simpler is generally more satisfying and usually less expensive, leading to a more general peace of mind. But the absolute best is what I prepare for myself with good, healthy, and fresh ingredients…
I'm reminded of a Valentine's Day dinner out that was the ending 'bracket' of a 20-year relationship.
Valentine’s Day ’95 … I think, give or take a year…
I took my wife (at the time) out for a Valentine's Day dinner date. We went to Night Town, a nice restaurant/club, featuring excellent food and live, soft jazz piano entertainment while dining. It was very pleasant, and I thought that she and I were starting to get over a difficult period in our relationship that had lasted since the birth of our twins a few years before. It was pretty expensive for us at that time, even though I was finally earning a ‘decent wage’ as a technical writer.
Later that evening, she informed me that she wanted a divorce… and my life, and that of our children took a long downhill trajectory for several years after that, which goes without saying…
So, even temporary satisfaction with an expensive meal and comfortable ambiance turned out to be misleading and ultimately ‘NOT worth it’, as she had intentionally led me to believe that our relationship was on the mend, which in reality, she had never intended, as she confessed to me while demanding the divorce... decreeing that I should move out as soon as possible... And I did...that being the 'last straw'.
Free Will
I’ve been thinking about the idea of human feelings and emotions being ‘biochemical algorithms’ developed over millions of years on the East African savannahs as defined by Yuval Noah Harari in his book, Sapiens.
It certainly leads to the conclusion that there is no such thing as ‘free will’, just another human myth to try and explain the only two functions that scientists are beginning to acknowledge, deterministic evolution through natural selection and the apparent statistical randomness of the universe, which preclude any such concept as ‘free will’.
When I look back over my life, contemplating, meditating on its course and the decisions that have supposedly led me to my current position, I honestly can’t see that any other decisions than the ones I made were truthfully, factually open to me.
I know that there are those who will claim my complete agency and responsibility for those decisions. But, the longer I live, open myself to and see the reality around me, the more I doubt the idea of ‘free will’, that in truth, all our decisions could be mapped out by an AI agent, given enough data, biochemical, psychological, external, could predict every single decision I or anyone else would ever make.
Therefore, ‘free will’ is a myth (IMHO). You are certainly entitled to your own opinion on the matter…
–LE
Eternal Now
To paraphrase Carlin
Now doesn't really exist
Merely the intersection
Of future and past
Here it comes..
Wait, it's almost here
Not yet…
Now?
Nope, it's already gone
Here it comes again…
But
It's the future that
Doesn't exit
Merely a hoped-for
Potential,
An assumption
Of continuation
And the past is
Only a story of what has
Passed through
The eternal present
Only a pattern of
Neurons strung together
Temporarily until
Those patterns dissolve
Into the Void as
The essence of our
Perceptions also
Dissolves into that same
Void from which our
Constituent essences
Continually recycled in
The Eternal
Now
–LE
Temporarily Etched On The Ground
It Doesn't Matter
whether it's Social Security
Medicare
the post office
or the VA
the only reason
to privatize
is to give our money
the public's money
(tax revenues)
to our leaders’
crooked friends
in the private sector
and on Wall Street
private ‘efficiency’ is a myth
doesn't exist
never did
just capitalist propaganda
to keep the rich rich
and those in power
even more powerful
we
the ‘unwashed masses’
can go to hell
where we obviously
belong
time to ‘kill’
the leviathan
–LE
Identity
All human Identify is
Based on stories
Stories we tell ourselves
Based on the stories
Handed down to us
Since the beginning of
Human communication
It's how we establish
Our reality
These stories are based
On the selective information
We call 'facts'
Our vested interests intact
Since there are no such things
As 'facts'
Just perspectives
Agreed to by
Humans in charge
The 'winners'
So to speak
But
In spite of the overall
General stories
We each have our own
Individual stories too
Just as 'fact-free' as
The general ones
Merely perspectives
Guiding the rendering of
Our masks
What we want or
Expect others to see
Protects our vulnerabilities
Our true realities
We are human
After all
-LE
Letters Of Marque
That is 'privateers'
In other words
Pirates
Sanctioned by
Governments to
Raid and capture, or
Sink enemy
Commercial entities
Ships, stores, and such
Their frequent symbol
The Jolly Roger
Crossed bones with
A grinning skull atop
Even though letters of marque
Officially faded away
In the mid nineteenth century
Modern 'privateers'
That is pirates
Still ply their trade
But they are now called
Hedge fund managers
I'm waiting for them
To use the traditional symbol
With the skull grinnning
Back at you...
--LE - 7/28/25
Stock internet photo...
Tui Shou
When practicing push hands
I let my hand textures morph
Through soft and 'sticky' to limp to
Letting my hand-blades spring out
Like claws from
Cat's paws for the
Decisive bloodless cut
My center and blades
Flowing and dominating
The swirling currents
Of my body's space/time
Embrace
--LE - 7/26
ancient Mesquites lean dangerously
over the path as if whispering to
younger ones on the other side
some copses remind me
of groups of people lounging
under bushy ramadas
gossiping in low tones
‘look at those untethered ones’
‘they don't seem to know that
everything comes to those who wait
those rooted in place’
some remind me of leggy
spindly visions of
broccoli florets
–LE - 7/26
Mesquite-dreams - Ink'n brush and watercolor pencils in watercolor sketchbook - 8x5"
Three of us anchored the picket line at the Tucson VA's Ajo gate from 6:30-8:15am for the morning shift change.
Responses were similar to last few weeks, 75-85%. Only one obvious negative today... the guy with flicked middle finger... We just laughed and waved... probably just made him angrier... oh well...
The morning was cloudy, which is novel... at least this week. So what sunshine beat down on us was 'hazy'... But it was still hot, and I was sweating by the time we headed home.
What is ‘common sense’ but what benefits the majority, the planet, and all its inhabitabts.
Common Sense
We’re always advised to use it
but not to abuse it
what’s ‘common’ for one of us
not necessarily so for the rest
like everything else in existence
common sense evolves, changes
from one generation to the next,
often unrecognizable decades hence
but for the ruling classes, the
economic elite, the status quo
IS common sense for their
vested interests against the rest of us
everything in the universe is subject
to entropy, all systems mineral, organic
political, economic, including
‘common sense’
since everything is in flux, we
can devise a more nuanced
a more beneficial sense of what
it means to be common sensible
something that uses logic and
intuition and creative thinking
to resolve our mutal personal,
social, and ecological problems
build a healthy, sustainable environment
for all of Mother Earth’s inhabitants
not prioritizing the vested interests
of the demagogues, ‘elites’ in their own minds
–LE
Breakfast at the Birdfeeder Diner
wrens and sparrows arrive first
5:30 am sunrise long shadows
barcode the entryway
a flock of morning doves land
survey the ground, then hop up
on the birdseed buffet
pecking away nudging early
risers out of the way, need seven
times their weight for the day
the big boys twice the size arrive
two-tone gray and translucent blue
push all the others out of the fray
all the light-weights amble at the feeder
base pecking up crumbs and husks
the big boys missed in their haste
in less than an hour, two feeders
stripped bare, and the breakfast diners
go searching for another buffet
all while a neighborhood cat-posse skulks
around the outer wall and fence, eyeing
their potential ‘bird-breakfast’ buffet
–LE
I had a visit with my Dad on Father’s Day a few years before his death. This poem is the result of that visit. I wrote it that night when I got back home. So, it’s about 20 years old now.
Father’s Day
Sitting at the kitchen table (Dad’s desk),
I flick the lighter and linger under each of our cigars.
After the lighting puffs, a couple of long drags,
Rolling the heavy smoke, savoring its texture and flavor,
Letting a little roll out of the mouth,
Pulling it up through the nose,
Finally expelling it deep into our silent conversation.
I’m looking into a mirror that reflects the future–
A mathematically probable future…
I consider that probability as we sip coffee–
He, through Parkinson’s shakes.
I once saw him break a pair of pliers with one hand,
Sheared the pivot pin in two–not for show,
Just getting a grip on something that wouldn’t be gripped.
A wave of shakes forces him to save his coffee
By setting it down.
I help him re-light his cigar… another long slow drag
Expelling it into our silent conversation.
We are both fathers. He’s mine.
This is a celebration of that distinction–
But it gives me the opportunity to see my future–
A mathematically probable future.
He has collected uncountable treasures over the years–
“But it’s all worth money, it’s valuable,” –to someone,
Somewhere–maybe…but for all of it, there’s no cash,
No savings–no future.
I consider the collected treasures in my own apartment–
“I’ve hung on to this stuff because I thought I’d enjoy it
When I retired and had time for it; now, it’s too much;
I’m too tired and weak, not interested in it any more.”
Better decide what’s important now–enjoy it now,
Just in case the Future Mirror predicts true.
But then, the future’s in flux.
Nothing is impossible, only mathematically improbable…
Another long slow drag…rolling the heavy smoke,
Savoring its texture and flavor,
Letting a little roll out of the mouth,
Pulling it up through the nose,
Finally expelling it deep into … silence.
–LE
The Primordial Ooze
the darkness is
growing and I'm old
so what to do
one thing only
fight the growing
dark strike a spark
a match a candle
light a bonfire
spark it
wherever opportunity
presents tinder
make daily choices
that brighten not
darken our
collective
futures
don't be deceived
all actions have
costs impact
ever brighter
futures or breed
dark superstitions
reverse evolution
sliding back into the
primordial ooze
--LE
Early Onset Dementia --LE - Ink (Micron Pens)
on Multimedia Paper 8x8"
SS & Medi-dare
SS retired - required - inspired
just plain tired - almost expired
expiration date all up to fate
emancipated and medicated
perhaps need bruja-ha
or shaman help truer
SS short-shrift - left adrift
SS sucking sound as
austerity abounds - moving
wealth by fiat to leach-class
warehouses for the greed
brokers and their want-a-bees
medicare not really there
less money for private
providers pirate connivers
no vision nor dental -
no meds less parts
C thru Z - extra fees
Where's my bruja?
--LE
