What dwells within

ben-Uziel broiled poultry passing by;
for such a peaceful guy, some found that odd.
High-wattage conduit into the sky
three times each day bore orisons to God.
Hillel'd expounded worlds between the words
to find a covert mitzvah to be kind.
His davening posed no such threat to birds;
the God he linked dwelt neatly in his mind.
Our omnipresent God is everywhere
and Hillel's pleased to place the local call.
What others broadcast to the atmosphere
his private chat with God is "still" and "small".
Once we've internalized the Deity
Their miracles are wrought through you, and me.

infrastructure

Cell-service revolutionized world trade
leapfrogging infrastructure that's not there.
Before an optic fiber cable's laid
the data's in the 'cloud, sent through thin air.
MaBell's a lap or more behind the pace.
As long as banks use checks inscribed in ink,
we're scarcely even players in this race; 
our global ranking's only gonna sink.
World economic order on its head.
The late adopters claim the top reward.
Our century of influence is dead, 
too late to cut the corporate 'phone cord.
Nigerians reap billions in sham deals;
Americans share photos of our meals.

Shannon Entropy

I dreamed that you could understand the code that I'd devised
devoid of ambiguity as plain as broad daylight
and anyone who heard or read could look out through my eyes
a sweet, seductive fantasy that helped me sleep at night
I rushed to put it down in ink the moment I awoke
but trains of baggage came along with every word I chose
the clarity was the mirage, and all I clutched was smoke
that through my fingers oozed away and to the stars arose
Retreat! Retrench! at least in math, we share communion pure
that isn't just conventional, transparent to us all

but Gödel interjects to say I must not be so sure

an edifice on such a base in time may also fall
self-organized, dream-words conform to heptametric verse
so somewhere, entropy must grow, within my universe

Dadaism

Magritte and I mistrust what words convey
and he sought clarity in paint and ink
but still, no Other's sure what we would say
nor clearly grasps the substance that we think
the Dadaists engaged the task absurd
a hopeless conversation on their part
attempting, both in image and in word
to say we can't communicate in Art
and yet they drew, and wrote and worked in paint
compulsively, as if to scratch an itch
depicting what their senses said there ain't
no doubt, some saw the paradox is rich
they dreamt the channel magic'ly would clear
and painting quelled their existential fear

Qualia

I dreamed that you could understand the code that I'd devised
devoid of ambiguity as plain as broad daylight
and anyone who heard or read could look out through my eyes
a sweet, seductive fantasy that helped me sleep at night
I rushed to put it down in ink the moment I awoke
but trains of baggage came along with every word I chose
the clarity was the mirage, and all I clutched was smoke
that through my fingers oozed away and to the stars arose
Retreat!Retrench! at least in math, we share communion pure
that isn't just conventional, transparent to us all
but Gödel interjects to say I must not be so sure
 an edifice on such a base in time may also fall
I hammer language 'til it fits in heptametric verse
then launch it on its Viking pyre into the universe

Wittgenstein's poker

proud edifice of language built on sand
presumes that there's an Other who will read
or one, at least, who's apt to understand
the thoughts to which our words intend to lead
that tongues can sketch what could not ever be
seems not to bother ordinary folks
who trust your qualia and mine agree
the ambiguities, they use for jokes
like ants constructing tunnels, we persist
as if mere speech could ever make it clear
compulsively, we're each a Sisyphus
portraying to the void the world in here
each solipsist constructs a universe
from blocks as apt to bless as they're to curse

message in a bottle iI

message in a bottle

within a sonnet's lines, a world's contained
an arbitrary form gives shape to Art
expressing, through a medium constrained
the metaphoric language of the heart
through rhyme and meter building up effects
that resonate within a reader's mind
like dance that intimates the joy of sex
or painting sunset's glory for the blind
the poet can't know who might take his bait
the reader's lexicon might be in Dutch
across such chasms to communicate
the leap of faith required would seem too much
a language fraught with ambiguity
aspires to sketch what others' eyes will see

arrhythmia

communication's mostly a mirage
who knows what meaning others' words convey
we think we penetrate the camouflage
and hope it's plain to them what we would say
the minds of others might be just like ours
but that's an axiom we'll never know
at best, we know our own reasoning powers
the rest is mere induction and say-so
each mind's alone, at sea on the wide world
the rest may be mere figments we construct
but no one dwells on that when boy meets girl
until the morning after we've first made love
what's left unspoken can--one hopes--be guessed
completing in your head our feeble jest

O wad some pow'r the giftie gie us

Trump's blindspot could eclipse a universe
that bad comb-over's boyish in his eyes
and posing next to Christie (who looks worse)
it's easy to believe self-serving lies
most guys dwell on the candy on his arm
to comment on  his mop might give offense
the haystack that looks fine down on the farm
looks weirdly plastic next to old Mike Pence
but Donald's deaf to those who'd give advice
what's negative's lost in a verbal haze
he knows they meant to say that he looks nice
the only sounds that penetrate are praise
denial guards his ego from the world
next season, he'll import another girl

is there anybody out there?

communication's hopeless from the start
if I can't prove that you exist at all
and our most elevated heart-to-heart
might just as well be murmured to a wall
deductively, I only know "je suis"
there may be no reality "out there"
if universe could end with "I", not "we"
we're solipsists adrift on unseen air
or each of us Narcissus at his pond
enamored of the visage we project
desiring someone else with whom to bond
or--minimally--someone to reject
to function, we become willfully blind
and tell ourselves we know another's mind

barriers

our speech is fraught with ambiguities
that baffle efforts to communicate
what's clear to me in my soliloquies
means something else when whispered to my date
we only hear what fits our mental maps
dismissing other sounds as aural trash
if not a single meaning, two perhaps
selected from the ambient hiss and crash
it's comforting to think we're understood
that other minds are really like our own
to doubt this link inevitably would
mean we're immutably each all alone
for carpenters, a stool's a place to sit
for doctors, the same word denotes a shit

unsaid

Aphasiacs learn a dog-like sense of tone
'though they can't parse a sentence or a word
non-verbal cues (lost on the telephone)
inform them what's sincere and what's absurd
what toddlers had before they learned to speak
can be recruited when language is gone
thus nurses speaking Arabic or Greek
can still convey to them what's going on
deductively, one can't know others' minds
are more than phantoms that our own project
but judging who's an ogre and who's kind
one needn't share a common dialect
when aural world and optic correlate
we take on faith that we communicate

process

Americans are scared to talk of "class"
and so we banter visions of the State
no matter that the front-runner's an ass
whose backers only resonate to hate
as if corruption were the only threat
and--were it clean--we'd cheerfully agree
on everything from gun-rights to the debt
and what it means that all  Men are born free
our silence breed dysfunction and mistrust
it's not the way to know another's heart
alliances--if not preserved from rust--
when need is greatest tend to fall apart
so let us calmly reason, you and I
and not embrace each politician's lie

liberty

to speak aloud what's better left unsaid
if not the law, still violates good taste
the snarky monologue inside your head
corrodes society when aired in haste
the penal code can only stake the lines
but ethics have to rule on what's inside
the law's too blunt a tool to make such fine
discriminations with a brush so wide
no legislature can prescribe what's good
while leaving citizens to live lives free
it lays out what one can't, not what one should
or risks devolving into tyranny
Free Speech is guaranteed because it's dear
yet what it means is anything but clear