New World Order

Things Are Changing


Segregated
easier to control
Us against them
They weren't like us

What you thought
How you talked
What you said
Wasn't universal

Taught to fear
the unknown
The strange folks
Foreign Cultures

Floodgates opened
300 Baud, Broadband
e-mail, WiFi
Microsoft, Linux, OSX

Everyone is cellular
Part of a grid
The grid is global

We didn't know
Xeng Zhu
20 years ago

Now we send
cell phone pictures
and text messages

His moon is full
Its high noon here
We are now
20 seconds apart

Our governments
think different,
we think the same

The genie is out
consequences unforeseen
Now they are worried

If everyone communicates
The boss loses control
You can't herd cattle,
if the cows are organized

When borders
are just lines on a map
Who do armies fight?

Without the walls
how do you govern?
How do you repress
What everyone thinks.

When global conciseness
replaces global power
Do we speak with one voice
or many?

Fighters and Tanks
can't stop ideas
It isn't us against them anymore
It is just us from now on.

Double Speak

The Good Old Boys



Tastes great
Less Filling
Its not food
Its engineering

The ketchup is shipped
in railway tank cars
The special sauce
in 55 gallon drums

Bells and whistles
Made in China
Someday, they
will buy them too.

We are safe
from terror
but can't defeat
what fostered it

50,000 miles
or 5 years
Its leased
You don't own it

The anxiety ratings
Today's body count
New virus
Details at 11

Brittany / Paris / Lindsay
Action figures
Leading by example
Your daughters someday

Its OK, Charge It!
That way
You'll pay
Forever

We want it bigger
We want if faster
no wonder
the rest hate us

You pay
for the packaging
and the distribution
not the contents

Send them back?
Hell No!
Who will mow the lawns
and pick the crops?

While savoring the juice
Ever wonder
where the meat
really comes from?


(An ode to our mass marketing culture. They tell you what you want, so they can make a profit.)

The Artist

Stained Glass


I didn't know in the beginning
It all seemed scattered
No real structure
Paint cans and brushes

She changes her mind
So did Leonardo
and Michaelangelo
Painting over the mistakes

She never had the opportunity
Past lives, past loves
Repressed her
Like a seedling underfoot

When she realized
she had been released
She grew slowly
Took small steps

She transformed
a broken pipe
and shattered concrete
into a marble hall.

Bare windows
overlooking an alley
became Notre Dame
or a field of roses

Brick by brick
she rebuilt a house
with paint
and stencil

She wipes out the past
makes a new future
where beautiful things
cover the ugly

When someone this old
becomes a child again
it is a wonderful thing
to behold

Scoot.....

Urban Flyer


Humming down a sidewalk.
Emissions free
Bobbing
Weaving

Tree lined streets
with rough pavement
Barking dogs
and the smell of wet grass

Wind at my back
An extra 3 mph
With a watchful eye
for cross traffic

Up and over
Pedestrian bridge
Vaulting the freeway
Where thousands wait
Idling

Skirting past the sleeping drunk.
Hindered by the traffic light
My own little third world
Isn't such a bad place



(a homage to my $70 electric scooter salvaged from the thrift store. With only a mile and half to my office, it is the best commuter vehicle I have ever owned.)