There is a part inside many of us
that desires to live on, to persevere
beyond our body’s expiration date,
to continue
beyond time,
to maintain an enduring presence,
to leave, as they say, a mark,
an imprint upon the world,
and to leave it indelibly
and indisputably,
in such a fashion that it will remain undisturbed,
like Neil Armstrong’s footprints on the moon,
with no winds to disturb them
alter them,
modify or erase them
for all time.
21 February 2016
Tim Konrad
Some folks just seem to place a higher value on integrity than others.
You learn this about people, over time,
in subtle or sometimes dramatic ways,
or you don’t, at your own peril.
And, when you don’t,
if your relationship with that person
is an important one,
the consequences can be such
as to encourage more learning.
Children, lacking guile,
provide vivid glimpses into their psyches
in their daily interactions with their peers.
Whether integrity is inherent in some of us,
or is something learned
and conditioned over time,
is a matter easily as complicated to suss out
as is the weather.
Regardless , many children clearly possess integrity,
or the components from which it’s derived,
and express it plainly in their actions
from an early age.
We see this as innocence
But often there is also
a generosity of spirit–
a foundation of character–
shining from the depths.
Speaking of integrity,
or its lack thereof,
let’s speculate for a moment
on the degree of integrity present
among the crop of Republican hopefuls
currently vying for their parties’ nomination
for the office of President of these United States.
And imagine, if you will,
and visualize these Republican wannabes,
or people like them that you may know,
as kids on a schoolyard playground
interacting with their peers.
As seen from the level of schoolyard politics:
How often, by comparison to other kids,
can you imagine one of these young aspirants
taking cuts in line?
Cheating on a test?
Blaming others when something goes wrong?
Lying to cover up misdeeds?
Taking credit for the accomplishments of others?
Making things up to gain advantage?
Bullying other children?
When something goes wrong
and one of them gets caught,
Do they proudly display their innocence
with certitude and conviction
while repressing all qualms, should any be present,
with chilling deftness?
These brave Republican lads
have now grown up
and they desire control of your government!
They want to run your country!
And, based on their pronouncements,
the promises they are making
on the campaign trail,
the assurances they are giving
in their town hall meetings,
and the fervor they are igniting
among their followers
in their rallies . . .
they are gaining attention;
they are attracting followers.
Regardless of whichever candidate their party finally chooses,
he will be a force to be reckoned with.
If you prefer to judge a person based on their words
and not their actions,
then these guys–
this odd coterie of Republican Party hopefuls–
might sound pretty good,
(if their message resonates, that is),
like, maybe they could scratch your itch,
soothe your pain, or increase your gain
the way you’d like to have that happen . .
Your way!
Maybe, who knows,
the way it should have been done
all along.
Maybe!
Increasingly doubtfully maybe!
Chance of a snowball in hell maybe!
(if their message doesn’t resonate),
Meanwhile, back at the level of schoolyard politics:
Were you ever lied to by kids you knew in school?
Did kids ever cut in line in front of you?
Did you ever know any kids who cheated on tests
without feeling guilty for having done so?
Did you see any kids try to blame other kids
when they got caught for misbehaving?
Did you know anyone in school who tried to take credit
for the work of others?
Were you ever bullied?
If you knew any kids like this, back in your school days,
did you enjoy being in their company?
And, if you didn’t, or even if you did,
or if you were one yourself,
do you really want someone like that to be running the country?
When did we collectively forget
that actions speak louder than words?
Actions bespeak character.
Words by themselves are nonsense.
If one chooses to judge a person based on their actions,
and not their words,
it ought to be safe to assume
at least for the job of President
that narcissists and sociopaths
needn’t bother to apply.
Tim Konrad
19 February 2016
The jury that hurt us
and I wasn’t there
are over the slower now
allow you to film a ball
into the other goal
of a little league
all the font
although the dismay of the women
other than 1/2 hour outlook:
Anya
ollow up our bowl
that your order
was talking about posting
the fisher of outlook
at lower cost.
Windows Speech Recognition
17 February 2016
Somewhere
in my graveyard of forgotten ideas,
Longing
for a time that never was
and never could have been,
while missing out on what
really could have been
if I had only been awake enough
to have perceived it
at the time.
Dreaming of going home
so many years later–
for it is dreaming, after all–
is like yearning for a place
that exists in the mind
more than on a map.
An idealized place,
more fiction than fact,
and one sharing much in common
with “traditional family values”–
that much vaunted
and even more idealized
darling of the conservatives–
that is the stuff of fancy, alcohol-induced complacency,
and misdirected trust.
The “good old days”
that really weren’t, anyway
unless you were White, God-fearing
and incurious . . .
I must have misplaced the memo
reminding me
that you can’t go home.
August, 2015
Tim Konrad
The dismantling of all the signs of a life once lived . . .
the cleaned-out garage, the house,
emptied of its belongings,
the absence of the plants that once lined the path
leading to the front door,
the empty garden behind the house,
the curtain-less windows,
the fresh paint, the repairs made
helping erase all evidence
of the someone
for whom this place had served, for decades,
as Home.
The almost total absence of what once was,
the trees
that used to shade the entire area
behind the house
on a sunny afternoon.
Those trees
now cut down.
The coziness their shade provided
now missing
the light streams into the space
without resistance,
imbuing the scene with the characteristics
and feel
of another place and time.
The old fence out back
dilapidated and falling down,
the one she’d said she would never have been able
to afford to have fixed,
now vanished, replaced
by a shiny new fence,
its bright reddish wood
a stark counterpoint to the old, worn gray patina
of its predecessor.
And oh, the garden!
the garden that once was;
the garden of roses, of fuchsias and civil disobedience,
of English cucumbers and Sun Gold tomatoes and opportunity
and her beloved Flammes;
the garden of taking a stand,
of principal;
the garden of political resistance
to arbitrary overreach by those
who find it difficult
to mind their own business without also trying
to mind everyone else’s business;
the garden that served to steel the resolve of its tender
in the struggle of opposition to conformity,
and rejection of mediocrity;
the garden that nourished the spirit
of the one who tended it;
The garden whose absence
impacts my senses more profoundly
than ever did the flowers
in all their glory.
Each time I behold it,
each time I pass that place,
I find myself stricken with awe,
enveloped in melancholia,
consumed by the need
to assign meaning–
to restore order–
to the disarray left behind
by the suspension of activities,
the break in continuity,
occasioned by her departure.
The complete erasure of a person
and the place they held
in their society
in their community,
an event not uncommon
yet somehow incomprehensible,
a regular event, yet without parallel
in recognition of each person’s individual uniqueness,
and, with regard
for those whose lives she touched,
an event fraught with emotion,
the flood of feelings thus produced
seeking redress, remedy, recompense.
Once that light’s gone out,
the sense of presence that used to fill the place
ought to linger,
evaporating
at the pace of moss
growing over stepping stones
previously worn smooth by the bustle
of many footsteps.
It should not depart with the furniture!
Maybe, once the commotion has died down,
it will make its presence known
in small and subtle ways
though that was never her nature.
Hopefully, it won’t disturb
the next occupants.
Come Spring, when she would have been
putting out her bedding plants
it will hit me
“there will be no garden there this year.”
7 February 2016
Tim Konrad
Dan Hicks died today
Aged 74 years,
the day previous
Bernie Sanders,
also 74,
debated his rival for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
How strange and mysterious
and ironic
is life’s ebb and flow.
Two men
of similar age:
One whose life force has departed,
the other whose energy appears boundless.
One whose song, now silenced,
will live on only in recordings;
the other, whose voice, extending way beyond the horizon,
still has life.
One whose work is finished,
the other, embarking on a great adventure,
still has work to do
before his time is done.
06 February 2016
Tim Konrad
Hi Greg,
We just finished the last of the gingerbread slugs you shared with us. What a fitting, and delicious, way to honor your sister. Thanks for sharing them. Hope you’re keeping avalanche-free over there. Please give our regards to Cathy.
Tim
Most voices
silenced by death,
having lost their presence,
remain so,
But the voices of those departed
whose words ring clear and true
independent of context,
and outside of time,
may reverberate for millennia.
28 January 2016
Tim Konrad
They should have posted warnings at the door.
Trapped in a barful of bagpiping bagpipers
packed tight as a tin of sardines,
Pipers piping prolifically,
their pipes protruding preposterously,
everywhither, porcupine-like, in every quarter,
one parked menacingly close
to my starboard ear
another, portside, drawing alarmingly near,
with a third preparing a full-frontal assault
poised, with endoscopic intent,
as if deciding which nostril
would be the most propitious point of entry.
Trapped like a bug in a bagpiper’s web
like a dream in a dream-catcher’s net
held captive
and forced to endure a sonic assault,
a blaring bedlam of boisterousness,
a cacophonous clamor of caterwauling,
a sonic trifecta, unpleasant, unexpected and undesired.
An assault on the senses and on sensibility
reaching into new and, thankfully unimagined dimensions
in the realms of musical possibility–
(If only they’d stopped after two numbers)!
while heralding the unsurprising discovery
that bagpipe music,
like garlic,
has clear and unambiguous limits,
practical, sensible
and universally undeniable limits,
beyond which only the hapless, the hopeless
and the witless
dare to venture.
27 January 2016
Tim Konrad
Despicable!
That label was custom-made for you
long before you were born.
Someone
in the distant mists
of time beyond recall
innately knew
that, far in the future,
and unburdened by conscience,
you would come along
And, in order to provide the world
with a way to describe you–
your nature, and the misery you would bring to so many–
in your time,
the word “despicable”
was set loose on the wind
and in the world
to disseminate, procreate and then wait,
like a virus, in the shadows,
for that unhappy day
when you would ultimately hatch.
Other words–
Odious, vile, ignoble,
contemptible, reprehensible,
hateful, loathsome–
these, and more of like inclination
fail to convey the awfulness
of “despicable;”
They describe aspects
of your behavior,
your persona,
but none capture your essence
in total
with the succinctness
and elegance
of your personal descriptor.
As in Sanskrit, where a word
not only describes its subject
but also resonates at its same frequency
making both synonymous
with each other,
the word “despicable”
is synonymous with you;
All other similar adjectives
are mere descriptors.
The day you were spawned
was the day the Word awakened
to its true potential,
the day it took on special significance,
assumed its role as a Personal Adjective
and began honing its nuance, laser like,
so that any minor discrepancies,
misapprehensions, misunderstandings,
between the Word’s meaning
and its subject’s thoughts, reasons, deeds
were resolved beyond question.
Whether you were shaped, molded, by the Word
as you metastasized
or, instead,
you labored from the outset
to live up to your description,
to become worthy of it,
(narcissist that you are),
your hostile takeover of the world
was encoded into your genetic makeup
eons before your infection was allowed
to escape.
But alas!
There are some things
for which the Center for Disease Control
not to mention recorded history
have no answers.
. . . Well, history speaks of one
but not one to which I subscribe
And besides, that’s only
a short-term solution
to a problem as old as the ages.
4 February 2016
Tim Konrad
I walked into my kitchen
a short while ago
in a rote and dispassionate manner
prepared, though unaware of it
for an ordinary experience.
What occurred instead was, not dramatic,
not compelling,
and, of relative inconsequentiality;
‘Peculiar’ may describe it best.
It began with an odor
faint, with fruity overtones
that varied in intensity by location,
that announced itself
in general terms–
diffuse, understated–
seeking recognition,
daring identification.
And. just when I was beginning to see
how disappointingly at odds
with ‘ordinary’
the experiencing then underway
was turning out to be,
An aroma of arresting intensity
made its sudden presence known.
An order of magnitude stronger
than the feeble tang
that preceded it.
A stink assertively strong
confident, proud and unapologetic
precise in its focus
explicit by intent . . .
A smell bearing remarkable resemblance
to a particularly distressing
and unmistakably recognizable
and, unfortunately, unforgettable
flavor of flatulence.
A scent with gravitas
authority
pedigree
shoving aside all doubt
to its authenticity
while it dares you
to deny you know its name.
And I was the only one home
at the time.
And I looked out the window
across the way
to where you used to live
When you were living
And the synthesis of these two ideas
like brain Leggos remapping new neural pathways
made me wonder if there really is such a thing
as ghosts
and
if so
if you’d just dropped by to leave us a scented message
a gaseous note
from the void.
2016.01.20
Tim Konrad
sonora2sonoma 