Casting Our Zeroes and Ones

 

—Photo by Robert Ramming 

—Poetry by Robert Ramming, Yolo County, CA

—Photos by Robert Ramming and Joseph Nolan

FOREBODING

Something's wrong tonight
          the moon is full
                     but the light's not right
Dust swirls where it shouldn't be,
          branches move where there is no breeze

Something's wrong tonight
          daytime birds
                     startle into flight
Headlights on the road, tilted and askew,      
          shadows move, just out of view

Something's wrong tonight
          it chills the spine
                     avoids the light
Led on by promise of sorrow, loss and pain,
          has that rough beast, at last, slouched into Bethlehem 

 

 

 

—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

 

 
COMPTON 1968

Obliviously out of place, mother driving, father navigating,
two not-quite-teenaged boys in back,
         we rolled over Compton’s asphalt avenues
         on an August pilgrimage to the
         orange skies of Los Angeles.

From our perch, my brother and I
gawked gape-jawed at the big city kaleidoscope
         of posters & graffiti,
         glitter & litter,
         hippies & hookers.

We were tourists in an
ambivalent ambiguous otherworld.

Vague vanguards of vagrants
trudged carts up & down the boulevard,
          circuit riders for uncertain times.

An angry black man stood astride a street corner,
shouting his prophecies into the smog.
          We could not hear what he was saying
          through our tightly rolled-up windows.   

 

 

 

Space Station Transiting Crescent Moon
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan

 

THE EARTH-SPINNING GOD

Surely they are wrong,
  those people who say it's just turtles
    all the way down

Maybe you've seen the glimmer
  of the divine lines extending west
     on the surface of our planet,
        sensed them especially close to sundown,
           when unseen planes of existence
               reach out to touch us

These mark the path
  of the ever-westward god,
     spinning the earth with every step

That sense of movement just beyond your sight—
  that's the god passing by,
    intent only with rotating our blue-green ball, west to east,
      unconcerned with humanity,
        our squabbles, our fears, our loves

Surely you've done it too—
   maybe not so much now anymore,
     but when you were young,
       and followed the tracks of the earth-spinning god,
         felt the turn of the earth
           with every push of your toes,
              the swing of your arms

Didn't you do that?
  Didn't you join in along that westward journey
     and for a moment, you were part of that god,
        something aligned with the universe 

 

 

 

Indigenous Fence
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan

 

WHEN OUR RAGNAROK COMES

When our Ragnarok comes
            we will know that it is of our own making
but we will curse the gods anyway

For allowing Pandora's Box to open
            For giving us fire
For dangling the apple of Knowledge before us
            For creating us

When our Ragnarok comes
            the gods will not emerge to shake the world
with their final, divine combat

They have been silenced by iPhones,
            gagged by one-hundred-forty characters of hexadecimal runes,
bound by the entangled photon beams
            of quantum communication satellites

We sit, unaware, above the imprisoned gods,
            casting our zeroes and ones into more perfect patterns,
self-righteously enraptured by the spells of our Priuses
            and air travel carbon-offset purchases

While dolphins die,
            polar bears drown,
coral reefs bleach to bone,
            oceans choke on our plastic,
insects disappear

The world heaves and burns in agony
            as Alexa plays our music

When our Ragnarok comes
            there will be no horrific creatures of Saint John's Apocalypse,
no thundering of Thor's hammer, Mjolnir.
            But, there may be the whine and roar of Tomahawk cruise missiles
blindly guided to their destiny of destruction

The goddess Kali will be smiling in her fitful slumber.
            But she is lost to the world, encased in our disbelief,
a chrysalis, awaiting the call of vanished worshippers
            to bring her forth in proper, terrible glory.

 

 

 

—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan

 

 

 
"Write what you know," they say.
      So, I'll tell you what I know.

I know if something is advertised on TV,
      I probably don't need it.

I know blackberries are sweeter
      for their thorns.

I know everybody is strange,
      some just hide it better than others.

I know if you're not going to let sleeping dogs lie,
      it's best to wake them from a distance.

I know happiness is over-rated,
      but I still enjoy it.

I know there is beauty to be found within ineffability,
      but I'll never find the words.

There was a time I knew so much more
      than I know now.
Like the song says, "Seems like everywhere I go,
      the more I see, the less I know."

I once met a man in a magazine.
      He said, "No one gets out alive."
I met another man on a movie screen,
      and he said, "We all got it coming, kid."

I know that, as much as I like comfort,
      I prefer truth—most people don't.

I know that the lessons will be repeated
      until learned.

I know life is short, love is sweet,
      and nobody knows whether that matters at all, in the end.

I know the stars are far away,
      but there are times I can feel them in my blood & bones.    

 

 

 

Cat Sushi

—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan

 


Today’s Middle-Sized-Nip:

MOTHER SHIP
—Robert Ramming

She stretched up my chest,
    claws hooking through shirt,
slightly into skin—
    a threatening sign of feline affection.

Vertically-slitted eyes stared unblinkingly into mine—
    so I blew a puff of air onto her face.
She did not blink,
    but claws did dig in a little deeper.

I could sense observations being transmitted
    to the mother ship, orbiting invisibly
somewhere above our planet.
    Into my mind she said,
"Not your planet for much longer, bub."

And there was more, so much more,
    but she erased it from my brain
with her alien eyes.

 

 

 

—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan

 

________________________

Robert Ramming and his wife of 42 years, Debbie, reside on their small farm in Yolo County. Robert is a full-time small-scale farmer, occasionally dabbling in poetry and other forms of trouble-making. Besides fruit, vegetables and poultry, they have also produced four fine children who, being smarter than most, fled the farm when they were grown. Thanks for the poems and pix, Robert, and don’t be a stranger! (Our thanks also to James Lee Jobe for steering this farmer’s tractor our way!)

For more about the Ragnarok, go to norse-mythology.org/tales/ragnarok/.

 

If I still lived in Pollock Pines, this current wildfire would probably have us evacuated and maybe even homeless. All our thoughts are with wildfire victims, not just in California, but everywhere this season. It's a rough one...

__________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 —Photo by Robert Ramming

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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