Music to Our Years

Musical expression and interpretation develop earlier in individual humans than non-musical speech. Infants focus on and learn the musical components of speech earlier. Music is essentially emotional communication. Body language is usually neglected in what little I have read or heard about in these studies and discussions. The tendency in research and discussion of itContinue reading “Music to Our Years”

Is This Thing On?

I took the stage at open mic on St. Patrick’s Day. I like to think “mic” on that day is pronounced like, you know, an appropriate ethnic slur, sort of. “This is a poem I wrote especially for today. I wrote it today.” The crowd was already deep in their cups. “It’s called…’Jesus Wept.’” AContinue reading “Is This Thing On?”

Lab Rats in Lingerie at Long Last

Human knowledge is shared. It is the result of generations of humans collaborating and competing, cooperating with and confounding each other, and of the condition of cohabitating. Just being together creates meaning. Often our mere existence offers the greatest innovations and insights. What we do with each other, ordinary behavior, also defines and determines whoContinue reading “Lab Rats in Lingerie at Long Last”

The Character of Things

I have always felt torn between the need for something exciting and dangerous, for a sense of greater purpose and momentous importance, and a desire for quiet and insignificance except what I make of events for myself. Walking alone some time in my own primordial past, the phrase “only myself to please” came on meContinue reading “The Character of Things”

And the Word Is Trip Aces

Vanity of vanities and nothing new under the Sun, but change happens in the universe and in the minds of all creatures great and small. Change happens slowly by evolutionary environmental interplay by the process of mutation and speciation. Change happens quickly in the same terms by the process of natural selection. Natural selection’s outcomesContinue reading “And the Word Is Trip Aces”

Distance on the Look

There is no dignity in death, but peace,In that not being, in short, we are no longerResponsible and so may rest the stronger,Letting go these concerns as our release.What tasks unfinished careless, like remains,A haloed dawn spot on an empty chair,Where moved before a life, then silent air,Shadow gasped memory of one, sustains.No time isContinue reading “Distance on the Look”

The Biological Origins of Our Proportional Cruelty and Rashness in Moral Matters Perceived Through the Lens of Identity #1

Since I am more a poet, not a researcher, I have not done a survey of the studies. But given the facts that our brains, according to all the limited evidence I have inflicted on myself like a workout routine, have evolved to be quick and reactionary, more risk averse than reward attracted for theContinue reading “The Biological Origins of Our Proportional Cruelty and Rashness in Moral Matters Perceived Through the Lens of Identity #1”

The Butterfly Effect of a Dropped Quarter

When people say “back in the day” it seems pernicious:To frame a thing that way sets up divisionsBetween what seemed to be and what now seems;But both claims ought to make us most suspicious,Since both are seeming now, and thus revisions,And memories imaginary echoed memes. The little things compose mythologies,Emerging out of ordinary actsWithout volition,Continue reading “The Butterfly Effect of a Dropped Quarter”