Summer vision

The twilight etches cliffs in stark relief;
a foreground bonsai focuses the scene.
MDMA inclines me toward belief
that someone understands just what I mean.
The atmosphere is scattering the Blue
to stain the cloud-deck many shades of red.
A vignette shared in empathy with you,
and all the moly coursing through our heads.
If I could conjure such a scene in verse,
I wouldn't so despair that I can't draw.
But knowing that I can't, I feel accursed;
no other mind could know quite what I saw.
An isolated mind resents it's plight
preferring to insist we've shared this sight.

visionary

The opportunity Bush 41
let slip when Gorbachev threw wide the door,
Recurs when Putin's empire venture's done.
It's less than zero-sum, what's spent on war.
Enduring Peace Kant saw could be achieved,
instead of fighting ancient feuds again.
Just needs world leaders able to conceive
that Peoples are no wickeder than Men.
"That vision thing" he struggled to explain,
was lost on Dubya when it came his term.
The GOP post-Nixon shuns the brains,
preferring tools who're pliant (but act firm).
It could be now! If only those on top
could contemplate a rival as world-cop.

Of arms, and the man

No sumptuary laws constrain a king;
Hephaistos wasn't sparing any cost.
Achilles took the field, in epic bling!
His enemies must know just whom they've crossed.
To flee, or fight once they'd strayed near his path
was all the same, before this day is done.
This godling, incandescent in his wrath
consumed them all, like aspic in the sun.
Patroklos stemmed the tide in borrowed gear
but failed to fool Apollo, so he died.
To counterfeit the prince that god held dear
mere armor can't ennoble what's inside.
The wine-dark sea, the burnished bronze's sheen...
Blind Homer conjured worlds he'd never seen.

apparition

Pink clouds of cherry blossoms levitate
upon a sea in countless shades of green
a challenge for the mind to contemplate
within three pounds of squishy wet machine.
If clouds wax pink, why need a sky be blue?
and must your lexicon comport with mine?
The frequencies reflected set the hue,
but conversation's tinted by each mind.
The qualium evoked when you see "red"
might differ from what I call by that name.
I can't know what goes on inside your head,
'though lazily, I treat the two the same.
A vernal contemplation en pleine air
is pretty, 'though I can't be sure what's there.

Alien

A cuttlefish with glasses for 3-D
will strike at prey that isn't really there,
when shown a movie splitting red from green
as well as any falcon, snake, or bear.
Darwinian selection gave them eyes
quite independent of the orbs we sport,
and neural hardware that might theorize
'though manifestly not the chordate sort.
As alien as any brain you'll find
A parallel construction link by link.
Our common forebear couldn't have a mind
but cephalopods--somehow--learned to think.
Such good ideas recur, time and again
be it in motile molluscs, or in men.

action potential

continua impinge on eye and ear
but nerves transduce at once from A-to-D
and so it's only quanta that we hear
no less than it's by photons that we see
to propagate one trips an ion-gate
and only then does anything get done
there's no smooth curve for one to integrate
the increments are never less than one
yet minds construct "reality" out there
and I suppose the same goes for a bat
'though theirs is built from echoes in the air
announcing just exactly where food's at
brains conjure mind like oysters conjure pearl
and nothing's magic here despite John Searle

arms race

mosquitoes navigate by CO2
plus IR gradients to find their prey
which makes it hard to see what one could do
to keep blood-sucking parasites at bay
and vampire bats add sonar to the mix
of signals guiding them to their next meal
while no one seems to understand how ticks
make out unless they're doing it by feel
and who can understand a leech's mind
that eyeless, earless, gloms on in the creek
perchance vibrations guide their quest to find
the hemoglobin bounty that they seek
beset by such a fierce array of threats
a billion lives depend on sheer bed-nets

hodge-podge

some grumble Bernie hews to the same text
no matter what the audience, or site
while Hillary says what the crowd expects
one for the ethnic votes, one for the Whites'
on issues unforeseen in years to come
how she'd respond is anybody's guess
an amazon of details leaves us numb
but no speech is consistent with the rest
she advocates "Clean Coal" and shutting mines
and never tries to reconcile the twain
irreconcilable things to combine
from speech to speech although it seems insane
a vision to connect disparate facts
remains the feature her campaign still lacks

is there anybody out there?

stray noises in the night elicit fears
when mind's deprived of input from our sight
we're ill-equipped to navigate by ears
scenarios abound that might be right
bats conjure up reality from sound
as tangible to them as light to us
their construct rests on just as solid ground
despite a wholly different stimulus
if Yoda learned to read gravity waves
his information stream cannot be blocked
abroad by day or in stygian caves
his data keep on coming 'round the clock
if all converge on one ontology
it's more than anyone's equipped to see