(Collection of bits and pieces, streams, dreams, hits and misses - finished and unfinished and to be continued to percolate)

NOTE: Content on these pages ([song catalogs], text, music, recordings, sounds, images or other media, etc.) are 99+% free of any generative AI [aka A.I.] inclusions - when/if used *directly,
a notation indicating such, will be (or is) attributed.     *3rd party applications/software utilized in the design and/or presentation on these web pages, where the 3rd party does not make this information known to the user, is not then considered part of this acknowledgement.   

Let's begin where we never end ... along the way ... until we must go where our ending is what we always knew,
that longest of sleeps we could only dream about now here to speak.

The soul’s providence where such creations begin their journey and manifest into external objects, sounds, sights, words, emotional connection(s), what reliance on GenAI will change the artist's dynamic process in doing what artist's do?

I maintain we’re all artists on the grandest canvas of all, where the art of living unfolds in its rapturous sways and ways usually returning to humility - but who or what is the ultimate arbiter, but self-reflection.  (2024)

related Article (11/14/24) Shakespeare or ChatGPT? Study finds people prefer AI over real classic poetry.  and the research study here.

the primary difference between life and death is breath, with the most extraordinary one the first, and then the last. (2024).

OR

the primary difference between life and death is breath, with the most extraordinary one the first when breathing gives way to the last. (2024)

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Out of now coming, to somewhere going, the linear plane immerses and covers in deep disarray, then as if designed,  discovery.  When reached,  direction on the wings of the transcendent soul or more simply, carrying of the eternal flame. (2023, rev 2024)
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… a withering way, now tucked neatly in the lower-level of my final resting, surrounded by what seems to be a kind enough neighborhood of earth worms and assorted other smallish characters, gazing upwards from my certain repose, what if I had lived one more day … to live another day. (2024)  ...

to hear a song about dying then living then, who knows where to begin again ... perhaps >   To Live Another Day.

Can a scientist anymore than a member of the U.S. Supreme Court (or anyone for that matter) compartmentalize their beliefs and opinion to the degree where these do not cloud and/or influence their conclusions related to the same, available information as their peers, yet reaching a different, primary denouement?   Is this counter-intuitive or simply, intuitive - and mostly, how then to know? (2024)     [“It is also utterly irrational if activists ask to “follow the science” if there is no single direction.”]

I'm Not

I’m not getting any younger but no one else is either. (2023)

I'm not getting any funnier but everyone else seems to be laughing ...  (2024)

I'm not going to guess what to say next other than to just say it without regrets ... (2024)
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In the seemingly endless moments of existing, let the light and darkness proceed as they inevitably will and allow the penumbras to sharpen the focus before acting on convictions, then engage accordingly. (2023, rev 2024)

 ... we're essentially in the wilderness of 'thought' and 'thinking' together - each others guide through what is often the unknown ... I know nothing but what I think, feel, fear and mostly, how I love and how less I hate, just as you, just as all - wonderful insights and willingness to share are so very appreciated, can only hope all are receiving some glitter and fairy dust, in return for their good will and magnanimous humanity (2024) [originally posted a very similar sentiment to students, in a shout out to them as they circled the depths of the learning tree.]

FAIRNESS + equality, is perhaps one of the greater deceptions in a capitalist world. (2024)

don’t ever try to get the jump on nature, that leaf appearing to be doing push ups is a lizard - a little native exercise to appear larger to those perceived as threats.   However, I saw no other reptilian forms in the neighborhood so I guess this exhibition was for me, as a threat … thank you, Mister lizard (2023)

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to persuasively express oneself is to impassion and imbue with the flame of conviction ... (2022)
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pushing back sometimes, is the only direction forward.  (2021)
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YOU respecting human rights and removing the veil of ignorance and indecency.   Can YOU, will YOU point the finger to say it is Y O U causing the discrimination, the vitriolic speech turning to deeds of destruction and mayhem.   Another serial killing based on color coding, gender or orientation cleansing or the sense of cultural superiority and hate ... it is YOU who thinks of others as not of equal worth to YOU and for this, I cannot be tolerant of YOU but must stop YOU from yourself. (2022) 

we are an extremely violent society coupled with a deep desire to love and be loved; perhaps it’s the seeming inability to fulfill and embrace the latter that produces the former?  (2015, 2020)

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If talk is cheap what is the worth of actions ? (2021)
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trust runs as deep as water can flow (2020)
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To be deceived is part of learning how not to be  ...  (2019)
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https://tboneburnett.com/when-einstein-met-chaplin/

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babble, fine line between genius and insane … both outliers … (2023)
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"To give the ancient trope a modern context, consider the words of Robin Williams, whose suicidal death in 2014 was precipitated by Lewy Body Dementia: “You are only given a little spot of madness, and if you lose that, you are nothing.”  "(https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-hidden-habits-genius/202009/is-there-thin-line-between-genius-and-insanity)
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NOW, we're all paying the price for not trusting one another, including those who lead us or try to appear to be in the lead - are we stealing our own souls? (Covid-19 mirroring, May-2020)

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When in the forest or other natural habitat, the key is to be ... without editorializing. (2020)

a lone, peacock's call (2021, about a mile away from where recorded)

there are no boundaries to creativity, except for those we impose upon that space ... essentially, a beginning and an ending become arbitrary points in time for marking these limitations. Yet upon observations or interaction from others to (and of) these creations, the expanse returns to its origins of the boundless. (2020)

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ant in tiny space
    eons of evolution
        joyful crawl serene (2022)
 
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shifting four seasons
    flights of a moving spirit
        resoundingly free  (2022)

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above, traditional Japanese Haiku and variations on the theme

... and until the rhythmic, mesmeric pattern of the digits blinking one after another, gives way to jolting the sensibilities to a more solemn realization that this is one of those truths you don't want to believe ... but also know, can never abandon, deny or fail to engage in an upgrade for understanding what appears initially, to be unfathomable. (2022) watching numbers rise such as these,          

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                                                                                and ... more on numbers but a different kind of truth to test the mettle  ...

Whoa to those not taking a stand for what they believe with both the humility and fortitude to know when what they believed, was wrong then and even more wrong now. (2020)

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will life's energy or death's pull lead the way ... I'm not waiting around to find out ... (2022)

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the tree limbs quiver
    as deep watering enlivens their stay
brownish leaves synthesize to a greener darker shade

the burning rays of the sun for now passing away
    tempered by the liquid's cooling of its veins
another cycle of nature and its linking chain (2011)

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Democracy, playing out similarly perhaps to an accordion but rather than with tones in frequencies, the movement and sounds of voices expanding and contracting (participation and the fight and struggle to not be excluded) - an incorporation of necessity and expedience.  And as asked many times before in the history of what began as a model of fairness for regulating and providing order to/for the many,  yet frequently practiced from an elitist orientation, can a people rule themselves without destroying that which they've created for such governance? A model (as its people) perpetually in flux, just as is in the most elevated of spiritual reconciliations.

With the rhetoric and demonstrations competing for space in our ears and minds, percolating and imprinting a decisive path forged by a powerful minority with a willing yet skeptical majority, what then will become the critical actions in policy to move the enterprise steps forward on the spiral stairway of democracy?  (2020, 2022)

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The holidays without COVID,

maybe next year, maybe not ... anyone know a good joke like when waking up this morning stumbling out of bed and skating across the floor, stepped on a hard, dog bone treat and almost pooped /// hopped on one leg and one foot to the bathroom and looked into the mirror  /// saw a black mask stuck on my chest ... I screamed, then laughed, hell, this thing may always last ... and my behavior has changed in ways I will never comprehend /// that's not so funny but the illusion of a bat and its membranous wings clamped on my chest, I think was /// offering a peek into what might be fitting someday for an epitaph, you can't die laughing, only when you stop. (2021)

waves-2

Yet, how the mind will filter into oblivion, that which proves false to what one believes, yet not strive to the same lengths to prove true when it is (Nov-2020).

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to be thankful is to embrace the value of living through giving ... (Thanksgiving, 2019)
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deep, deeper and deepening ... like the crescendo of the crickets as they in chorus, bid farewell to the dusk of twilight. (2020)

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Spent the first half of my life remembering now during the second half, forgetting ... then remembering.  So I forget but then remember, yet also thankful for what I need to know is generally what I remember and cannot complain, or apologize for what I don't.  Yet, I still get a good rise when discovering the movie I'm currently watching, was the same one I streamed but a few months ago ... I would be more concerned had I not remembered, not that I forgot. (2019)

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How long can a dream be sustained - not the slumbering kind, but those redeemed and revisited from slices of another time, fully awake, conscious and sound. (2001, 2019)
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We’re history unfolding (or unraveling), where anti-social is a socially prescribed behavior to keep society safe - topsy turvy, just like the virus spawning such imponderables. (sentiments to my brother, Nov-2020, in the throes of COVID)

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Why is it when a famous person says something it seemingly has more weight than if the same words or expression were uttered by that same person before their public notoriety -  what does fame have to do with the substantive elements of human sentiment?

Must I be famous to enlarge the social influence and impact of my words, deeds and demonstrations or am I as effective by connecting with one other human; deeply, memorably and transformationally? (2019)

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some might suggest, words are not actions, yet actions ultimately, cannot succeed without words.

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floating, lofting, breezing through
    remnants of a spider's thin thread flying softly through

touched down on my hand first, then sailed on through
    touched down next, slowly but certainly to the ground and it was through (2012)
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an angel on my shoulder, light, lithe and full of brightness
    on the other, a blighted soul downcast, somber of sadness
two shoulders, one body on diverging paths (2014, 2019)

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Here, sitting in the pose of Rodin’s Thinker, to what I dismissed as misguided rhetoric, now seemingly becoming manifest in the ills and eventual trials of a society.   What role did I play in this trajectory, at times seemingly in demise, the farce that was real  - a weight so heavy no one escapes alive, yet, will do almost anything to survive - one more day, one more hour and for some, a minute too much to bear.

All who care to fathom not what, why or how we did what we did or what we do, but rather, were and are the other choices so vile and repugnant so as to provide no better path?  Had those other presumably intolerable options been (or are) selected, our time, now shortened by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years, would have been sustained beyond, beyond what is not for me to know but certainly, to care about as much as the air still available to breathe - moving forward with cleaner hands would appear to be the only option remaining.

If the choices we did make and the actions we did take, were somehow beyond our wherewithal to reconcile, I guess that becomes our resolve, however difficult it might be to witness and surmise.

A species, any and all have little if anything to do with their beginnings so would not it only be on the side of equitable distribution, to also have very little if any control over ending?

What life and in what form will supplant or develop from our waste and squander and how then will what we could not accomplish, be reached to new heights by that which is learned from our fateful decisions?

Who will find solace and take consolation in blaming others for what we could not do together, as it was this very separateness freezing us in time, until for all of us, no time remained.  (2016, 2019, 2021)

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(rewriting ourselves) What if we could rewrite our life would we?  The crafted, inspired words would have to be true as the requirement would be no less a rediscovery of what we do to become who we must be in essence, exercising our greatest potential as a human in being that which fits into the universe, the chaos and the peace, the known, unknown and to be found and fulfilled. . We then would become through such expressions, a soul transcending on a trajectory of energy unleashed yet joined with a common purpose with all other matters that exist in fact without conclusion yet continue on and on. (2019)

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We can try to soften and revise history to something other than what it was, but the consequences in fact, are indisputable. (2019)

(setting sun) The coolness on my shoulders tells me the sun is setting now - not much of a breeze to move the stream yet the warmth is now receding into another day's end in this part of the hemisphere.  I've gone back and forth in marking my life from the beginning and ending of each day and as often as possible, placing myself in the glow of the setting sun and while no less exalting, yet far less frequent, its rising.  From my working years seeing mostly sunrises to my retiring days where the setting sun almost always leads the way - adjusting to the solar clock, my senses inform me this is life unfolding as it should.

In the fading early twilight, quietly standing over the pond I saw both my rippling reflection and the lone fish returning a stare.  Feeling cheerless I wondered if this Koi had any association with what we humans call loneliness or a sense of estrangement or ennui? 

Swimming and moving heedfully through the liquid environment its breathing silent to the world and yet the cries of desperation were heard, I'm sure,  from here, not so many years ago when the current survivor, lost its mate.  An opossum, raccoon or even coyote, stealthily navigating and breaching what we now know was a superficial netting erected to prevent this very occurrence.  

The predator eviscerated this helpless and now hapless companion.  Evidence to support what I did not see take place, were bone and spine fragments somewhat neatly placed thirteen yards away. 

The apparent trauma for the remaining fish lingered for years as its behavior would demonstrate, going into a frenzied state whenever someone (or something) walked (or stalked) however quiet near its domain.  From this sanctuary and easing itself into the darkest crevice available for concealment, the Koi's vibrant orange markings morphed to tones of the mossy green water, gurgling through the filtered pond.  

Most organisms living together and generally having regular contact with either another of its kind or others of a different, colonize. Yet, some by choice (or necessity) or circumstances become marooned as it were, isolated and perhaps, alienated.  The image of solitary man or solitary woman living in the wilderness or apart from its societal moorings, invokes a powerful sense of being.  A deprivation in human connectivity, yet a potential opportunity for fulfillment unlike any available when embedded in the community or what further might be appended modernity.

Being alone is not the same as feeling lonely although their paths can and frequently do cross, just as in the midst of a crowd or even a group of friends, the sense of isolation or estrangement can take over the moment even when together - I guess I find this analogues as to this fish, resting in its pool of solitude for years now, moving about, receiving its periodic (but regular) feeding and for the most part, unaccompanied, alone.

Fast forward several years, as we exchange and level our glance, I sense the Koi is also connecting.  No longer frantically seeking cover or perhaps I’ve learned how not to arouse its threatened instincts. It would appear we both are welcoming the company of each other,  unaccompanied yet meaningfully absorbed with indeed, another   (2016, 2019).
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Keep bad days at bay ...
stay on the upside of sad ...
keep good moments near ...
stay away from hearsay ...

keep spirits high ...
stay while it lasts ...
keep enjoying the gifts ...
stay until it's time to say goodbye ... 
(2019).

               to say goodbye ...

truth must always be questioned but never denied. (2019)

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let me reach the evening time
    and then I’ll go into full stride
the days I wallow too deep and too long
    the night seems to cool and renew

some like the day, cold or hot
    I seem to follow the setting sun
fading to black settles my ways
    what I can’t see, I can’t confuse (2015)

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my failure is not doing what I profess
my success is to keep trying (2019)

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intent is selective and thus by choice, accident is purely happenstance - can't say 'sorry' if intended. (2019-20)

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Would I choose if I could, to time machine back to my teens, seeing more rainbows and silver linings ... hopes with dreams that have a chance of becoming ... less somber and more giddy with joy ... I think not, my teens as I recall, were heavier weights to lift and lacking the insights accompanying the adding of years ... now give me the body of my teens and that, I might choose over the increasing curvature of my spine as I am forced to see the ground from ever shortening heights, where I will return just as from where I began. (2020)

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a dream of sorts  ...

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