We are so much the victims of abstraction that with the Earth in flames we can barely rouse ourselves to wander across the room and look at the thermostat.
quote by Terence McKenna
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The first type of abstraction from objects I shall refer to as simple abstraction, but the second type I shall call reflective abstraction, using this term in a double sense.
quote by Jean Piaget
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Thermostat
When the hands that operate the motor lose control of the lever
When the mind of its own in the wheel puts two and two together
When the indicator says youre out of oil should you continue driving anyway?
Theres a thermostat that regulates the temperature
That might not be reliable
That should be disconnected
Turn it up, turn it down
Turn it up when the cold brings you down
When the heat bothers you turn it down
Turn it up, turn it down
As I was just saying
As I was just saying
As I was just telling you a minute ago
I was just talking and someone interrupted
Or was it a loud explosion?
Or is the thermostat engulfed in flames
Or is it just me?
Turn it up, turn it down
Turn it up when the cold brings you down
When the heat bothers you turn it down
Turn it up, turn it down
As I was just saying
As I was just saying
As I was just saying
Turn it up, turn it down
Turn it up when the cold brings you down
When the heat bothers you turn it down
Turn it up, turn it down
Turn it up, turn it down
Turn it up when the cold brings you down
When the heat bothers you turn it down
Turn it up, turn it down
song performed by by They Might Be Giants
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hot
How hot shall it get?
It is very early in the morning and it
Seem as if a fire has been lit
This summer weather
I shall not forget
Just how hot?
We shall see
It feels like fire is near
With scorching flames burning me
Hot hot is even the water pots
The ice I get; I shall waste not
The dial on the thermometer has moved not
As if the thermostat has forgot.
Nevertheless it is so very warm
Simply hot
For me
A quiet cool resting place
Would certainly just hit the spot
Whew!
It's sure hot
poem by Angel A. Lockwood
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Victims No More
Victims No more on this Mother Earth,
No More killing of her
people, animals, mammals, fish and birds,
to them she has given birth.
Yes, victims no more,
For all of us as one,
what you do unto the innocent
with your weapons,
has devastating repercussions.
From a standpoint of victims you make us your slaves,
bringing all of us to an early grave.
No Victims of the Sea,
the sea creatures are meant to have a destiny,
and swim in an ocean that is clean.
No one is here to have their homes taken away from them,
be it through pollution of oil from which it stems.
This oil drilling has to end.
So put down your weapons.
Copyright 2010 Christina Surnise
www.purplepoems.com
poem by Suzae Chevalier
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Victims No More
Victims No more on this Mother Earth,
No More killing of her
people, animals, mammals, fish and birds,
to them she has given birth.
Yes, victims no more,
For all of us as one,
what you do unto the innocent
with your weapons,
has devastating repercussions.
From a standpoint of victims you make us your slaves,
bringing all of us to an early grave.
No Victims of the Sea,
the sea creatures are meant to have a destiny,
and swim in an ocean that is clean.
No one is here to have their homes taken away from them,
be it through pollution of oil from which it stems.
This oil drilling has to end.
So put down your weapons.
Copyright 2010 Christina Surnise
poem by Christina Sunrise
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Before abstraction everything is one, but one like chaos; after abstraction everything is united again, but this union is a free binding of autonomous, self-determined beings. Out of a mob a society has developed, chaos has been transformed into a manifold world.
quote by Novalis
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Killing By Computer
There is now computer simulated duck murder training..
similar to the computerized bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan
from Florida by computer.
We have a presidential candidate in the US who killed with
such abstraction... bombing Vietnamese women he did not
see from the air. The abstraction of violence generates a greater
level of violence.
poem by O. Anna Niemus
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A squirrel squeals...! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
On a hot noon
In mid June,
A squirrel
Races down a black
Iron pipe
Wagging her tail,
Full of energy
Squeaks
In delight,
Her ears alert
Nodding her
Head from side to side.
I watch
From my window
Lying on a soft bed,
In an air conditioned room
Feeling frail,
Just as power fluctuates...
Has God equipped
These creatures to adapt,
Or we have over taxed
Our thermostat…
and our adaptability
lies dormant...
poem by Mamta Agarwal
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Year To The Day
I woke up to yet another day
Grown to expect
Expect more of the same
Except for, for a subtle change
And that is, Im slowly fading away
Harvest moon, soon will pass
Crop is gone, left only chaff
A bitter pill, and an overcast
A flag unfurled, at half mast
A year to the day
Since you went away
A moment in time
When you were last mine
Im here standing still
With more time to kill
I barely survived
I barely survived
Like pouring salt on an open wound
Memory filling
Filling this empty room
Im as bare, Im as bare
As a barren womb
Still like the air
In a whitewash tomb
A year to the day
Since you went away
A moment in time
When you were last mine
Im here standing still
With more time to kill
I barely survived
I barely survived
Three sixty-five
song performed by by Van Halen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Can Hear You
I can hear you by they might be giants. made at the edison laboratories.
I can hear you
Just barely hear you
I can just barely hear you
This is a warning
Step away from the car
This car is protected by viper
Guess where I am
Im calling from the plane
Ill call you when I get there
You wont hear a buzz
But Im buzzing you in
Im buzzing you in
Whats your order?
I can super-size that
Please bring your car around
I can hear you
Just barely hear you
I can just barely hear you
song performed by by They Might Be Giants
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Piper
AGAIN I hear you piping, for I know the tune so well, -
You rouse the heart to wander and be free,
Tho' where you learned your music, not the God of song can tell,
For you pipe the open highway and the sea.
O piper, lightly footing, lightly piping on your way,
Tho' your music thrills and pierces far and near,
I tell you you had better pipe to someone else to-day,
For you cannot pipe my fancy from my dear.
You sound the note of travel through the hamlet and the town;
You would lure the holy angels from on high;
And not a man can hear you, but he throws the hammer down
And is off to see the countries ere he die.
But now no more I wander, now unchanging here I stay;
By my love, you find me safely sitting here:
And pipe you ne'er so sweetly, till you pipe the hills away,
You can never pipe my fancy from my dear.
poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
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Late Slate Date Statement 1841
Today, blank slate but barely scratched
must soon, with predecessors matched,
discover that it is dispatched
beneath time's stubble which sees hatched
new generation Lethe latched
which, pauper, plays with paper patched
until, in turn, from earth is snatched.
Tomorrow, many may not see,
Tomorrow turns to history,
and thence returns as all must be
re-archived with celerity,
unanswered moral mystery.
His story, her uncertainty
together R.I.P. oubli.
Between the two, one's too aware
of pointlessness that splitting hair
precarious may prove! Beware
of splits sectarian, unfair
intolerance, of jealous stare,
of petty squabble stirs whose blare
rouse Time's dragon from its lair.
(16 January 2009)
poem by Jonathan Robin
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Can You Now Sing
Can you now sing...
Katrina victims.
Treated less than human beings.
And labelled refugees!
For purposes to show how low,
Demons can demean.
You are in my mind.
And from my insight I wont let go.
Don't think God has forgotten.
Your lives have been prioritized.
Know this...
God loves you so!
Those who still can not believe,
We are all inhabitants of one Earth.
All of us born to one day die.
To nourish and replenish this Earth as dirt.
Lessons they have yet to learn...
Concerning what goes around eventually returns.
Now many suffer much worse than you,
Katrina victims.
Your pain endured has come for millions to feel.
And this is just the beginning for them...
To realize God is alive and real!
Can you now sing...
Katrina victims.
Treated less than human beings.
And labelled refugees!
For purposes to show how low,
Demons can demean.
You will!
You will!
You will!
God is alive and real!
And can feel as you do.
You will sing.
You will heal and love.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Reasoning
There was a portrait under the landscape.
Whispering of clouds,
writhing body and
tense folds.
The sorrows hold out
a veiled threat.
Mortality itself will finish the epic abstraction?
I am not sure, and then the fog rises.
Afraid of flames -
a man was burning alive in inferno,
the red blooms of serial blasts.
A hairy bigfoot runs through the passions.
The fractured faith scatters wild words
like childhood screams.
The very living was night of kills
a freedom in movement of time.
poem by Satish Verma
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Shelter From The Rain
When our hearts were young
We put our hands into the flames
Felt the heat from our emotions
We had fire in our veins
All those night wed spend
Alone in your room
Though my silent thoughts
I still remember
We would use the power of love
Free our souls in endless love
We would sacrifice
Our hopes and dreams
Because without love
Our world would surely die
When our hearts were young
We never thought that
Life would change
Now the seasons go on
Oh why do we shelter from the rain
And all those nights wed spend
Alone in your room
Through my silent thoughts
I still remember
When our hearts were young
We had fire in our veins
And each time we touched
Wed melt in the flames
When our hearts were young
We knew pleasure, we knew plain
But each time we kissed
Wed burn in the flames
Feel the fire in our veins
When our hearts were young ...
song performed by by Uriah Heep
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Gathering Mushrooms
As he knelt by the grave of his mother and father
the taste of dill, or tarragon-
he could barely tell one from the other-
filled his mouth. It seemed as if he might smother.
Why should he be stricken
with grief, not for his mother and father,
but a woman slinking from the fur of a sea-otter
In Portland, Maine, or, yes, Portland, Oregon-
he could barely tell one from the other-
and why should he now savour
the tang of her, her little pickled gherkin,
as he knelt by the grave of his mother and father?
*
He looked about. He remembered her palaver
on how both earth and sky would darken-
'You could barely tell one from the other'-
while the Monarch butterflies passed over
in their milkweed-hunger: 'A wing-beat, some reckon,
may trigger off the mother and father
of all storms, striking your Irish Cliffs of Moher
with the force of a hurricane.'
Then: 'Milkweed and Monarch 'invented' each other.'
*
He looked about. Cow's-parsley in a samovar.
He'd mistaken his mother's name, 'Regan, ' for Anger';
as he knelt by the grave of his mother and father
he could barely tell one from the other.
poem by Paul Muldoon
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In My Room
There's a world where I can go and tell my secrets to
In my room, in my room
In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears
In my room, in my room
Do my dreaming and my scheming
Lie awake and pray
Do my crying and my sighing
Laugh at yesterday
Now it's dark and I'm alone
But I won't be afraid
In my room, in my room
In my room, in my room
In my room, in my room
song performed by by Wilson Phillips
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In My Room
Theres a world where I can go and tell my secrets to
In my room, in my room
In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears
In my room, in my room
Do my dreaming and my scheming
Lie awake and pray
Do my crying and my sighing
Laugh at yesterday
Now its dark and Im alone
But I wont be afraid
In my room, in my room
In my room, in my room
In my room, in my room
song performed by by Beach Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Wonder As I Wander
I wonder as I wander, outunder the sky
How jesus the savior, did come for die
For poor ornry people like you and like i
I wonder as I wander, outunder the sky
When mary birthed jesus, twas in a cowstall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
And high from gods heaven a starlight did fall
And the promise of ages, it then did recall
If jesus had wanted for any wee thing
A star in the sky or a bird on the wing
Or all of gods angels in heaven to sing
He surely couldve had it, cause he was the king
I wonder as I wander, outunder the sky
I wonder as I wander
I wonder as I wander, outunder the sky
How jesus the savior, did come for die
For poor ornry people like you and like i
I wonder as I wander, outunder the sky
I wonder as I wander outunder the, sky
song performed by by Vanessa Williams
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.
Martin Luther King in Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 1963)
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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