The Hermit Crab Shell Game

There is a simple shell game

Which defies simple logic

While eye’s are focused on the shell

The pea changes it’s lodgings

This game is used in politics

In PR, and religion

To gain undeserved favor

Or fan prejudiced cognition

For like the simple hermit crab

That moves from home to home

You can’t ascribe acts to a shell

But occupants that roam

You can’t blame a religion

For the sins of past inhabitants

Or take revenge on nations

For the acts of long dead residents

A party can’t take credit

For good deeds of member martyrs

Nor blame opposing parties

For past despot’s broken charters

Beware of those that hide within

The shell of institutions

And those which defame other

Under labeled persecutions

They deceive and are deceived

As the blind that lead the blind

Divorced from truth’s reality

Partitioned in the mind

We group and name and classify

By given set criteria

Then disregard induction rules

Deducing by minutia

Apples and oranges both are fruit

But they are not the same

It’s true they share some properties

But not all I maintain

So ground yourself to bedrock truth

Beyond associations

Beyond the shell of labels

And their content’s expiration

See individuals as they are

As separate and unique

Their works and words will tell you more

Than spurious critique

A shell game is a classic ruse

The wise discard the shell

Till plain as day the truth display

Peabrains can tell as well

The Unwise Philanthropist

There once was an unwise philanthropist

Who planted his field full of corn.

His compassion was so,

At the time of the harvest,

He gave all his corn to the poor.

His neighbor, a wiser philanthropist,

Held back just a little in store.

All the cries in his ears

Of the poor he revered,

But he wouldn’t give one kernel more.

The next spring came time for the planting,

And the unwise philanthropist mourned,

For he had no seed,

And the poor had such need,

That he begged from his neighbor his store

“Please trade me some seed for one half of my field”

But the wiser philanthropist warned,

“Your compassion is great,

But your wisdom is faint,

For such charity the poor can’t afford”

“I’ll grant you this seed if you promise to me

When the poor come and knock on your door

That you’ll hold enough back

For the next year to plant

For the poor need a wise farmer more.”

Asylum

In a world rife with dysfunction

The enlightened suffer dear

They can’t awake with trump of truth

Those without ears to hear

Locked in mortal asylum

One doubts reality

For all around the madness reigns

And thwarts one’s sanity

What should work clearly doesn’t

For reason has no traction

Compounded by frustration

In a search for useful action

They cannot hide the truth from self

With defense mechanisms

They cannot dice the universe

And cause a deeper schism

And so awareness vexes them

As if they were insane

For wisdom augments sorrow

Just as sensing sharpens pain

Where can such find asylum?

Or invoke sanctuary?

Where is the place where reason reigns

With balance, poise, and bearing?

Bench Warmer

From afar I watch my life

Or that which was intended

A measure of creation

Shy of a destination

Second string

Unsung the sting of purpose

Vexed my heart

Fallow field without a yield

My passion play without a part

Potential put on hold

Where all my preparations cold

Comes to a negation

Send, O’ send as you intend

To bless my end

Warming the bench

Switched at Birth

Feral angel clipped of wing

Raised by man

And raising hell

Where death employed has left its sting

Suckled by a seraph teat

Child of man

Too rich and sweet

It spoiled in his belly

Their destinies were switch at birth

Unable to fly or make the grade

Unable to stoop to lower ways

And so both fled and made their home in me

Vassal Keep

Come in from the outside

And join our little group

For we are building room for you

A cozy little coop

To protect from outsiders

We will lock and bar the doors

Inside you’re free to socialize

But stay inside of course

We’ll nail the shuttered windows up

To ensure privacy

We’ll watch over you night and day

That is our guarantee

It’s home sweet home

So settle in from trouble and travail

Your safe within these social walls

We built them like a jail

Universal Tides

I dreamed I saw my sum of life

As if an ocean, large and wide

And stooped to quench my thirst with haste

But found it bitter to the taste

I pondered in this in state of woe

How were its contents tainted so?

And took it in my heart to trace

The source that spewed such wretched waste

At first, upon my journey found

A river wide, and swift, and brown

“Ah hah!”, I gasped, “the putrid source!”

“But who can turn it from its course?”

“Its current is too strong to fight.”

Then saw I it, my course in life

I said, “But surely it can change?”

And ran upstream -- until I came. . .

Upon the place wherein it started

Where several streams, and each one parted

Each not too large, but still to blame

I saw in each a choice I’d made

Then from these streams I traced them long

To find what made me choose so wrong

These streams split up in several factions

‘Twas then I saw these brooks were actions

Unlike the rivers mighty flow

These brooks were shallow, soft, and slow

To change their course was no big feat

Still what had made me be so weak?

It wasn't far, I found the reason

A place where water pooled in season

These were the source which gave brooks motion

The overflow of pooled emotion

These attitudes had fueled my fate

In subtle flawed character traits

But born to this? It seemed unfair

What shaped me thus, in pooled despair?

For seemed to me these had no source

Till rain drops fell as teared remorse

Yes, every bead were little thoughts

Which rained on soil pure or not

But do thoughts happen all by chance?

I searched and took a second glance

Above were clouds condensing drops

I saw how motive formed my thoughts

From subterrains of mortal mind

My heart’s desire bore fruit in kind

To will, to be--a single ply

One’s fix doth light or dim the eye

Though focus is of nature born

So spirit cleaveth to its own

Thus war within my members these

Two masters no man can appease

To change one's nature, what a task!

“How is it done?” I prayed, I asked . . .

Then came a voice as if within

“My grace's sufficient for thy sin.”

“In time my love will cleanse your heart.”

I cried, “Oh Lord, but where to start?”

He said, “Be patient, I have blessed”

“The water is your consciousness.”

“For in this cycle water rises,”

“To form new clouds on life’s horizon.”

“But when!” dear Lord, my soul did cry

As thunder came my Lord’s reply

“Through trial of fire I purge the soul.”

“Believe, and I shall make you whole.”

“Behold the sun be as mine eye.”

“Its pounding flames shall mistify.”

“So, broken heart to alter bring.”

“Yet all in all ye lack one thing.”

“The tenor love--its all you need.”

“So watch your words, your thoughts, and deeds.”

“Put each one in their place, dear brother,”

“For one alone can't cleanse the other.”