INTEGRITY

light and darkness:
option A has a list
of menu items.
Where am I and where are you?
see me.
touch me.
feel me,
and i you
alive or simply wondering,
a life well-lived
ought to have,
in the daily diet,  an ample dose of
undiluted
INTEGRITY.
what does this mean?
it is a simple word: INTEGRITY.
only 9 letters;
and yet it might be the most important word
in spoken language.
how so?
consider:
as a living organism,
a sentient creature
perhaps one chromosome removed
from the chimpanzee,
we homo sapiens
find ourselves on the pale blue dot of planet earth,
functioning as social creatures
with pauses for solitude.
we live and become aware.
ideally, continually aware!
but we are also continually at risk:
at risk of anxiety;
at risk of danger;
at risk of angst,
full well knowing there can be no ultimate security.
and yet,
as individuals in spirit, at rest and in our actions,
we journey forth on our path to discover who we are
at our DEEPEST level,
to make contact with our
HEART-MINDED source;
to become free!
and once free,
to defend our rational civilization and our common humanity,
by being neither a person of servile obedience
or a person consumed with the will to power.
we accumulate and hold tight to our collections
of what we feel is important for our completeness:
we gather pieces.
i feel that INTEGRITY
globally is a necessary part of compassionate nobility;
I see INTEGRITY
on an individual level
as part of our human consciousness
which refuses to trade freedom for security;
which refuses to abandon virtue,
and which stands above all for honesty and a clear vision
of our social contract.
INTEGRITY is our personal moral compass as much as the essential oar
which steers a storm-tossed boat
towards a community of equality, fairness,
and individual liberty.
we must guard this without compromise,
for it is what elevates us as loving creatures.

or they would

of course it isn't so
but then again
does it matter that
political truth is
stranger than fantasy
or as George Orwell
might have said
The Truth
and nothing but
The Truth
is dead
and that's been the fucking truth
for years,
absolutely years
and all the while
the tiny ants scurried around,
looked at an overhead sky
and saw nothing
to disrupt their dreams
of digging
and they felt mad
or not mad.
it was all the confusing same
and they weren't going
to take it anymore,
or they would.

what i kept dreaming of.

one and one is four
whispered the knockers
by the new front door
and there seemed a quiet sound
as i took a quick look
around,
heard a voice:  "Open sesame!"
then went completely blind,
those too many pills
helped me lose my mind.
someone quietly said
i should remain in bed,
maybe read a book or two,
but
then i saw you
at the gate
arriving so fashionably late
with a string of white pearls,
all freckles and cuddly curls,
throwing kisses with soft red lips,
big bright eyes and hungry hips:
you fit like a glove
which was what
i kept dreaming of.

Awe!

Awe!
ah, shucks
slapping slippery hockey pucks
for the winning points
getting free smokes in all the better hippie joints
while lounging under American skies
eating warm grandma apple pies
just about everything in the great prairie spaces
playing high stakes poker holding all four aces
watching forest trees dance
in an imaginative hallucinogenic trance
well, don't you know
from tip of head to toe
everything tingles
listening on the am radio to Wild Bill Hickok and his partner Jingles
getting lucky on a date
definitely has to rate
pretty high up there
where the rarefied air
is filled with exquisitely scented flowers
counting the seconds, minutes, and the elusive hours
sipping rich wine with a mouth full of poetry
anywhere from sea to shining sea
and much more such,
like a lovely skin to skin sensual touch
or a soft pillow made of comforting breast
give me this and i'll be tempted to give you the rest!
on the point of a needle our brief life pauses
immersing in irony and meaningful causes;
hundreds of millions of years gone by
and still we stand and wonder why.
well, something never to miss:
a soft, warm and lingering kiss;
an exhale and an inhale and an exposure to bliss.
and then this:
deep in the dark woods getting lost,
one toe steps timidly and touches frost.
a deep breath yearning to be free
of the pressing weight of modernity;
Whitman’s wild children fully awake,
singing in the open air by a deep-water mountain lake.
Awe!