“A republic, if you can keep it.”*

*Benjamin Franklin's response to Elizabeth Willing Powel's question: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"

 

I'm a collector of quotes. I truly find them to be concentrations of great wisdom and I suppose that's what makes a good quote endure--it holds up over time. With the turmoil that's going on in our country and the larger world lately, I've gone back to my collection of quotes for a little wisdom and guidance. I'm sharing a few favorites that are timely.

 "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."                                                                                                                               --Thomas Jefferson

 

 

 

 

I think of this one in reaction to most conspiracy theorists. 

  

 

 

 "There is only thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them."                                            --Winston Churchill 

"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."                                                                                                                            --George Orwell 

"As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."                                                                    --Abraham Lincoln

"I am an optimist because I don't see the point in being anything else."                                                                          ---Abraham Lincoln

Black Friday Clearance

Every few months, I clear the scraps out of my journal and put them outside for your amusement. Here's a few just in time for Black Friday Clearance.  Our prices are insane.

 

Timing is Everything

You feel it in your bones

Time to let the dogs roam

Time to quit throwing stones

Time for boys and girls to come home

Time for a grandson to pick up the phone.

Sun Watcher

Travel east to see where the sun rises

Travel west to see where the sun sets

Travel north or south

    to see if it will reach you high or low.

 

Quiet

Clam up

Pipe down

Shut up

 

The Battle of Yellow No. 2 Ft. Ticonderoga

My weapon struggles

to cross the blank pages

and the scale the heights of meaning

only to lose the element surprise

and forfeit my dreams of glory.

 

Orange to Black

 

Orange sunset--

you get a couple of moments of color

before the big black of night.

 

Follow Your Dreams

 

Dreams can be balloons

that pull you up to the clouds

    or

lead weights that drag you down

to the bottom of the sea.

 

 

Unrelated Couplets

Cross Dress Chess

Oooh what a mess!

You got a boat

Now stay afloat.

Bad Chinese Meal

 

Unfortunate Cookies

foretell something bad,

"Your bank account will be hacked."

Another installment in a series of never-ending, pointless exercise to generate band names

• 2AM Budget
• The Wrong Ones
• Mockbeggar
• Bander Trezel
• Close Range
• Jane Austin's iPhone
• Just Ask
• Fire Exit
• Newborns
• We Men Ledges
• Knavelines
• Tin Foil Hat

 

Numbers in Charge

Whether I want it or not

numbers are in charge

my alarm is set to 6:45AM

my bathroom scale gives me a large number

radio station, a low number--

reporting weather in degrees

traffic on odd and even interstates

the markets in percentages

sports teams in scores.

I drive, cook, and work

with numbers calling the shots

in time for the 6 o'clock news.

How did we live before numbers?

They were always there

Like they say about Christopher Columbus

he did not discover a continent

he just found what was already there.

 

 

Horological Aristocrat

 

Horological Aristocrat

            a Cento

All the clocks tik

but a grandfather clock talks

he is always companionable

never obvious

his words blend with the mood of the moment

When the mind begins to tire

he seems to say

"Don't press, have a rest."

but the evening, he says softly,

"Forget, relax."

He is quietly persistent

but never monotonous

murmuring, he gives a sense

of well-being and pleasant

detachment from the thing we call progress.

Source: Old Clocks: For Modern Use, 

with a Guide to Their Mechanism, Edward Wenham

Thanksgiving Traveler

 

Thanksgiving Traveler

Some souls travel

as radio and TV forecasters warn

of heavy rain in the Pacific Northwest

and snow in the higher elevations.

Some souls at home search 

for family recipes from the comfort of a messy kitchen

while outside their window, oak trees shake in the same gusty winds

that bring icy conditions to the upper Midwest.

What is it about Thanksgiving

where there is a certain ritual rejoicing

about travel, traffic, and bad weather?

We celebrate the sacrament as pilgrim and host.

Every traveler is on a hero's journey

a shared struggle from the Mayflower to the driveway arrival

where we sit down together

hold hands and say a blessing.

 

 

 

The madness continues in the pointless exercise to generate band names. Today, I'm repurposing mathematical terms. Geometry alone would supply enough band names for the next generation.  Here are some of my favorites.

Higher Math Bands

 

Absolute Value

Arbitrarily Large

Binomials

Coefficients

Common Factors

Cube Roots

Fibonacci Sequence

Denominators/Numerators (must perform together)

Derivatives

Empty Set

Exponents

Floor Function

Ideal Theory

Imaginary Unit

Initial Conditions

Improper Fractions

Irrational Integers

MeanMedianMode

Natural Numbers

Obtuse Angles

Probabilities

Standard Unit

Subset

Tensor Product

X-Intercept

Geometric Bands

Angle of Depression

Annulus

Bisectors

Center of Rotation

Circular Functions

Glide Reflection

Major Arc

Ordered Triple

Pappus's Theorem

Platonic Solids

Sector of a Circle

Self-Similarity

Standard Position

Zero Dimensions

 

 

Escape Fate

Escape Fate 

Walking on the beach 

In the dead of August 

I met a fish

Who told me

I could escape 

and live without my Fate

cut away from the gods’ woven fabric.

“What’s the catch?”

I asked the fish.

You will have nothing 

but your own choices

I stood stock still 

the waves lapping at my feet

and the fish long gone. 

A Midwestern Heart

From Bottom Dog Press, A Midwestern Heart, my first book of poetry.