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~ Finding, formulating and solving life's frustrations.

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Tag Archives: ecology

Somehow

08 Thursday Apr 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

ecology, sustainability

And then, at that precise moment: that’s when the trouble really began in earnest. 

Of course, looking back on it now, there were plenty of signs, if one cared to look. 

But one did not care to look, did one? Why would one? After all, it was so much easier to pretend it didn’t matter; to pretend everything would work out ‘somehow.’ 

‘Somehow.’ 

Was there any word in the English language so destructive or at least so self-delusional as ‘somehow’? 

Because ‘some’ is not your typical ‘how.’ A typical ‘how’ is a plan put together by knowledgeable motivated people and executed by knowledgeable motivated people. Some such plans are more detailed and some less so. Some have very well-defined responsibilities and some do not. But none of the real ‘how’s that I have ever seen happened by accident. 

‘Somehow’ is too rare; too unreliable; too fickle to pin your life on, and way too fickle to depend upon for the life of your kids and grandkids. 

Rely on ‘somehow’ and here is what you get — multiplied by a billion. 

Photo by Leonid Danilov on Pexels.com

————————————————————

“Come on, Margery, look at me. It could have happened anywhere. Come on! You think I’m not devastated too? He was my son too, you know. I loved him too, you know.” 

“Why, Jim? Why? It didn’t have to be this way. It really didn’t. People have known those chemicals were carcinogenic. What were they thinking?”

“I know, Marge. I know. So many innocent lives lost.”

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

———————————————————-

“Nothin’? Nothin’ for you either, George?” 

“Nothin’! Again! I’m tellin’ ya Lennie; it ain’t like it used to be. Not at all. It’s not bad luck. It’s no luck. There is literally nothin’ out there, Lennie. Well, leastways, nothin’ edible.” 

“Just may be that it’s time for the likes of such as us to find us somethin’ different to do. Ya know?”

“Lennie, don’t be startin’ again about a rabbit farm. I done told you that already. Fishin’ is what we know and it’s all we know.” 

“I know. I know you’re right George. But just — there ain’t no fish any more. That ain’t good if you’re a fisherman.” 

Photo by Mau00ebl BALLAND on Pexels.com

———————————————————

“They’re so beautiful, Daddy! Can we go see some real stars some day, Daddy?”

He bit his lower lip. He sighed. How had it come to this? “No, darling. We could go to watch a car race though!” 

“Mmm.” (Softly). “I’d rather go see some real stars. Why can’t we?”

(Sighs). “I’m sorry, sweetie. There’s just too much … “stuff” … in the sky to see the stars. Except for our sun, of course. That’s a star!” 

She bit her lower lip. “Daddy, is that the same “stuff” in the air that killed all the bees, and birds, and butterflies?” 

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

—————————————————-

“Another down day for the dow, breaking down below 5000, but an up day for Air Quality Kills. For the first, time, world-wide, the EPA says we’ve finally broken the 10K per day barrier. Details at Five at Five on at Five. 

“Now, back to the international women’s lingerie no-holds barred jello wrestling quarter finals. In the pink, …”

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com



——————————————————

“So. It’s come to this. I never believed it would happen, Ahmed.”

“Nor I, Saul; nor I. But, it’s not like we weren’t warned. And, even that it would be about water.”

“I know; but still. Nukes? Really? What’s the point? No-one can live in the whole region for centuries. Who won, Ahmed? Who won?” 

——————————————————-

[The following passage is translated from the original Arcturian. It’s a “literal” translation; or, at least as “literal” as any translation can be when the target language is English.]

“Blue Hike Candle, Please to report scan results of not-so-very-far-away gray brown rock planet.” 

“Amber Saddle Wave, Please to report scan results of not-so-very-far-away gray brown rock planet as:

No evidence of intelligent life.”

“Mauve Crest Bucket, Please to report recommendation action of not-so-very-far-away gray brown rock planet.”

“Amber Saddle Wave:,Please to report recommendation action of not-so-very-far-away gray brown rock planet as:

Ignore and revisit in 50 millennia rather than the run-of-the-air-turbine 5 millennia. The tailless monkeys are learners of many silly tricks. But they still sewer-stinky most of their time and energy and [Here, on the recording wails an untranslatable cross between the percussion of a jack-hammer and the trumpet of an elephant with a sad whale song weaving in and out of counterpoint]  trying to steal from each of the other of the other of the other.”

“Mauve Crest Bucket, Please to report recommendation action of not-so-far-away gray brown rock planet as ignore and revisit in 50 millennia accepted. NEXT!”

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

—————————————————— 

Ah Wilderness

The Forest 

Skirting the Turtle 

Math Class: Who are you?

Don’t they realize how much better off they are now?

You Must Remember This

Screaming out a Warning

Roar, Ocean, Roar

The Teeth of the Shark 

The Walkabout Diaries: Life Will Find a Way

The Walkabout Diaries: Life Will Find a Way

21 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

ecology, GreenNewDeal, life

It’s what life does! 

Check this out. What is this? It’s obviously the stump of a dead tree. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s the dead and broken trunk of a tree. 

Or, is it? 

It took me about five minutes to convince myself that all of those yellow flowers and associated green leaves are part of that same tree! 

Here’s another example. Where did these mushrooms come from? As you likely know, they grow from spores. But where did these spores come from? I didn’t plant them. There are no mushrooms nearby. But somehow, a puff of spores wafted on the wind and found an appreciative stretch of well-shaded damp ground. 

Life is amazing. Well, after all, it’s been doing its thing for 4.5 billion years. And, when I say “it”, of course, I really mean “we” because all of life — you, me, and everyone else and every other life form on this planet, like it or not, are on this same spaceship earth.  

—————————————————

Life is a Dance

Author Page on Amazon

The Teeth of the Shark

14 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Climate change, ecology, GreenNewDeal, pivotprojects, pollution, survival

The gaping, hungry maw of a Great White Shark circles beneath unseen. 

Wolves staring their glowing, glowering eyes in the snowy woods. We feel the burning eyes but they are just beyond our ken.

Roaring forest fire burns tree and bush and flesh as we run amok with blind panic. 

Would we not protect our children from these horrors if we could?

Photo by Josh Hild on Pexels.com

I fear for our children. And our children’s children. 

But not for Great White Sharks, or wolves, or forest fires or Grizzly Bears.

High in the thin invisible air, higher than the condor soars — deep, deep in the dark underground rivers of the world and in the crushing ocean depths, there lurks a monster more terrible than these by far.

Its tiny stinging tendrils reach out from the ocean, the sky, the forests. 

They are ugly and they reek though often they snake out unseen to claim their victims.

Photo by Leonid Danilov on Pexels.com

Each year the monster grows and claims more victims, condemning them to death — not the swift but terrible death of the Grizzly’s jaws — or the snap of a Great White Shark. 

Instead, the victim succumbs to the slow, grey, agonizing and painful cancer of rotting disease. In the tumor’s desire for unlimited growth, it sucks the life from its victim over months or years. The tumor, of course, like all creatures of pure greed, has no life of its own. It cannot sustain its own life but must prey on others. That is the nature of Greed, of Cancer, and of Pollution – three names for three heads of one deadly dog: Cerberus. 

(Wikipedia, 14 March, 2021: Hercules and Cerberus. Oil on canvas, by Peter Paul Rubens 1636, Prado Museum.)

And yet, we do not choose to kill the monster. Indeed, we feed this monster. 

We fool ourselves that we make friends with it. 

In truth, we simply bribe it with Today so that it may grow stronger for eating Tomorrow. 

In our Greed, we give the monster what it wants Today so that Tomorrow it may eat more of our children and of our children’s children.

Oh, yes. 

I fear. 

I fear for our children. 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Ugly, fetid, foul, poisonous tentacles of pollution encircle our children and they are closing in. They are closing in. 

And yet, we have all the weapons we need: our will.

We can withdraw the hand of Greed that feeds Today to the deadly beast. 

And all through the massive hall of mirrors, the countless years called:

 “The Infinite Tomorrow”, 

our progeny will thank us.  

Unlike us, their empathy will be strong, valued, and nearly ubiquitous. So, they will know that, as absurd as it sounds, this was not an easy decision for us. It was a near thing. We nearly doomed our entire species to lives of disease, disaster, and despair. 

But we cannot let that happen, can we?

——————————————————-

https://www.who.int/news-room/air-pollution

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/05/850470436/u-n-warns-number-of-people-starving-to-death-could-double-amid-pandemic

https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/freshwater/deaths-from-dirty-water/story

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/02/global-warming-world-not-doing-nearly-enough-un-report/6476363002/

https://pivotprojects.org

The Tree of Life

19 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

ecology, Eden, evolution, GreenNewDeal, life, love, nature, poem, poetry

Life is not rigid. 

Life is flexible. 

Life does not pretend it knows all the answers. 

Life builds on what has worked before and

Forever changes just to see what will happen next. 

Life is not a bigot or a racist or a homophobe or a misogynist.


Life has an open mind. 

Photo by Elina Sazonova on Pexels.com


Life will always find a way. 

Life is a joyous dance, not a mad, manic march of machines and marionettes. 

Life is not a gun. Life is not a bullet. 

Life is not a lie. Life is full of joy!

Life is full of love. 

Or, love, perhaps is full of life. 

Rip Love out of Life and … is what still life? 

Life is choice. 

Life pushes and pulls and tries and strives. 

We learn:

“Two berries are better than one.” 

We learn:

“Red berry taste better than green berry.” 

Photo by Dana Tentis on Pexels.com

Eventually, life learns that it needs to change

In order to survive. 

In order to keep being part of Life

In order to be and to become. 

Humanity, my personal favorite on the Great Tree of Life

Has lately morphed into a cancerous growth upon the Tree.

Many of us are no longer content to be alive within The Great Tree of Life

We want to become The Great Tree of Life. 

We want all of it to be like us. 

Just like us.
Exactly like us. 

Only…

When it comes right down to it, who is “us” exactly? 

If it’s okay to privilege human convenience over all other forms of life…

If it’s okay to replace the wondrous diversity of nature

With cement & Soylent green…

If it’s okay to destroy the lives of animals who share

Ninety per cent of their genes with us,

Then why not those who share 99% or, for that matter 99.9%? 

When a part of Life begins to think like that, 

It is no longer a part of the Tree of Life.

And the Tree of Life, who has been around, you know, 

And seen a thing or two.


And the Tree of Life, you know, is 4.5 

Billion

Years old. 

And survived asteroids! And volcanoes! And ice ages! 

And its immune system will destroy any cancers 

Any cancers that threaten the integrity of the whole.

Photo by VisionPic .net on Pexels.com


You see: 

It is no longer Life if it is all human beings and their great green machines.

The very essence of Life is the dance, the joy, the variety.


A maniacal macho monoculture is not really Life. 

Something would occur


And since all remaining life would be forced to concur

POOF!

Photo by Mike Krejci on Pexels.com


Out it would go. 

Only a momentary waft of smoked ruins.

The death of all life and none left to 

Remember or to mourn. 

Photo by u041fu0430u0432u0435u043b u0421u043eu0440u043eu043au0438u043d on Pexels.com

Just as cancer untreated kills the patient, 

So too does unrelenting greed kill the planet. 

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Hopefully, on some other whirling Eden 

Orbiting some other far-flung and lucky

Solar System another Tree of Life 

Even now is playing, dancing, singing, choosing

Even now, it is living, loving, changing, learning.

Even now, it is thriving and this Other Earth, 

That Earth has smart species a plenty 

But they enjoy each other’s company. 

I like to imagine that earth, 

You know, just in case.

Photo by Mau00ebl BALLAND on Pexels.com



But… 

I also like to imagine that we can look at what we’re doing

I like to imagine that we can look at where we’re headed.

And change course. 

Before it’s too late. 

I like to think we will.

How about you? 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

—————————-

Author page on Amazon

Index for a Pattern Language for Cooperation 

Good Morning!

14 Saturday Nov 2020

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

ecology, GreenNewDeal, index, poem, poetry, story

{Today, I rediscovered this poem which I originally wrote for our holiday letter on December 31, 1999. It seems apropos two decades later.} 

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

Good Morning! 

The sunlight sparkles on the snow;

Sparkles on the sea; 

On the fields of wheat; 

On the forests.

Photo by Mike Krejci on Pexels.com

A New Day:

A New Millennium.

Lids flutter open

In waves across the world — 

Minds at last awake 

From their deeply troubled dreams.

Blind ambition opens sleepy lids;

Wipes the sand away from slumber.

Humanity awakes!

At long last, 

The veil is lifted from minds and hearts.

Hands touch hands

The world round.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Everyone laughs as if on cue.

To think that we were ever so blind.

To think that we were ever so silly.

We chuckle and shake our heads.

Our teen-age years of rebellion are over. 

Guns fall silent. 

People see beneath the skin.;

People hear beneath the accent. 

We are glad to have so many brothers,

So many sisters, so many long-lost cousins. 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

With joy, the people begin the long,

Long journey back to Eden. 

We remake our traveling spaceship jewel.

We replant the surface of the earth. 

Seen from space,

Our whirling little marble greens again.

Our whirling edge of blue clears again.

Seen from our backyards, 

The moon grows clear and huge.

And stars once more appear in night skies. 

Birds fly over Mexico City.

Dictators become gardeners.

Soldiers become poets. 

Plastic turns to wood.

Creation is re-created.

Paradise, always there —

Suddenly appears.

Our multi-millennial blindness is cured.

Our multi-millennial sleep is over.

Good Morning! 

—————————-

Other Poems —- 

The Truth Train

The Pandemic Anti-Pandemic

Life is a Dance

T-Rump Swan Song

Comes the Dawn

https://petersironwood.com/2020/08/23/listen-you-can-hear-the-echoes-of-your-actions/

Try the Truth!

Roar, Ocean, Roar!

The Ailing King of Agitate 

Who are the Speakers for the Dead? 

The Watershed Virus 

Ah! Wilderness!

Essays on America: Poker Chip

Screaming Out a Warning

You Gave me no Fangs

Blood Red Blood

Snowflake

Mother’s Day

Comes the Reign

Choosing the Script

The Jewels of November

Imagine all the People…

The Most Serious Work

The Joy of Juggling

Wristwatch

Maybe it Needs a New Starter

https://petersironwood.com/2020/09/06/my-captains-no-captain/

A Cat’s a Cat and That’s That

Fate and Late on the Interstate

Camelot is in your Heart

Peace

Ambition

The Impossible 

The Bubble People 

Race, Space, Place, Face

Piano

A Suddenly Springing Something

Hauntings across the Time Zones

Roar, Ocean, Roar!

17 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, poetry, politics, Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

America, autocracy, COVID19, Democracy, ecology, fascism, pandemic, poem, poetry, Resistance, TheGreenNewDeal, truth, verse

 

snow covered mountain under blue sky

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Pexels.com

 

You think you are a stone. 

I say, we are a mountain. 

You think you are a thread. 

I say, we are a tapestry. 

You think you are a drop. 

I say, we are an ocean. 

 

big waves under cloudy sky

Photo by GEORGE DESIPRIS on Pexels.com

 

We are a mighty mountain 

A million men and women wise

Surprise! Surmise

What we can do —

You and you and me and you!

 

snow capped mountain

Photo by Life of Wu on Pexels.com

 

We are a tapestry: 

Rainbow rayed with light arrayed;

A pattern that will still unfold

Reveal our true color: bold

Share inventions not yet played. 

 

2D3064B5-D03E-4030-A3C0-607CAD849A52

 

We are an ocean 

A wave, a tide, a tidal wave

A thousand miles wide,

If we can summon brave 

Feel our brotherhood; eschew false pride.  

 

IMG_3794

 

Believe not those whose only play is hate and fear;

Empty promises that hide behind a hidden tier; 

Russian dolls and chopping halls, 

Down and drown in putrid falls,

Flimsy flash and dazzle — naught inside. 

 

D2560F07-0D3D-4CAC-A440-AD4D8E9BE79B_1_105_c

 

Voices of the damned divide and hide

The nature of the power of the people all in unity.

Czars seek division; cheat with false impunity. 

Have no love; offer no warm hand;

An iron glove; a loud brass band. 

 

abstract barbed wire black white black and white

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

You think you are a stone. 

I say, we are a mountain. 

You think you are a thread. 

I say, we are a tapestry. 

You think you are a drop. 

I say, we are an ocean. 

 

IMG_3071

 

—————————————————-

The Truth Train

The Pandemic Anti-Academic

The Watershed Virus

Life is a Dance

The Declaration of Interdependence

Author Page on Amazon

Index of “best practices” in teamwork and collaboration

Comes the Reign

Trump Truth Treason

The Ailing King of Agitate

 

Ah Wilderness!

13 Saturday Jun 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, health, poetry, politics, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

ecology, environment, Feedback, GreenNewDeal, life, poem, poetry, truth, wilderness

(I first published an earlier draft of Ah Wilderness in Peng Poets e-zine, summer 1997. I’m nearly finished with the highly recommended book, The Overstory, and so I decided to take another look at the poem and then extended it with the dissolution of form of the poem meant to mirror the dissolution of our society moving at last into prose but then, hopeful with the seed of form returning. I realize poetry is not everyone’s cup of tea. One reason I like it is that its dancing always on that same razor edge where life itself does its dance: chaos and regularity; change and stability).

scenic view of lake in forest

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Ah, Wilderness!

The words may well connote a false un-blurring
A fear, a chill — not from frozen stone alone
Or lake wind’s sweep; but from the urgent stirring
Of some soul still hiding restless in our bone.

Curse not the thorns of tasty blackish berry;
They keep fruit safe from claws less clever.
Curse not how swift the prey, how very wary;
They shaped our brain; & helped us know forever.

Curse not the winter’s churlish wind unkind
Or burning hot dry summer’s cinnamon sun.
They invented beautiful raiment through our mind
And taught us numbers soaring far beyond one.

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Curse not the change of season; or the suddenly sliding slope –
Unpredictable now and in the future as ever always
They make us search for patterns far beyond our scope of grope.
Ah Wilderness!

You are me as seen in Darwin’s mirror of minutes and hours,

And days of ways taken and untaken & lead us here at last.

We strive to take it all and make it all, all ours, all ours!

Churning every fragrant flower and pine to dust,

We must! We lust! We must! We lust!
We don’t have time for this and that.

We want everything now and that’s that!

air air pollution climate change dawn

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

And if in time all wilderness is bleak and dead,

Our bodies too shall wither and die and by and by

Our souls shall be but number: grey, unloved, unfed.

Asphalt, plastic, concrete & glass. None will die

Because in our endless war on nature, we are all “Undead.”

The Zombieland: machines gone mad; machines gone bad.

Swaths of humanity wishing to meld to macabre, merciless machinery!

abstract barbed wire black white black and white

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Life is what works! Life is constant change and innovation. But it’s been working for over four billion years! Look around you! It not only works! It’s marvelous! Machines don’t smell like that. Machines don’t look so beautiful as that. Machines don’t sound as melodious. Machines may be used to magnify malicious malignities if we let them.

Life is cooperative and interconnected and everywhere at once dancing on a razor’s edge between chaos and regularity. Machines are built to be efficient and effective and just tolerably presentable enough to be purchased — purchased by people who typically do not have to deal with the machine day in and day out. What do they care whether the machine is loud or smells bad or ruins your hands or explodes every so often or pollutes whole towns or scares away all the birds or kills every fish in the stream and every frog and that more trees will have to be cut down to feed it and more land raped to oil it?

Life is the invention of Love yet Love requires Life. (Maybe that’s why Love created Life; so it would have a way to express itself). Machines can be built to help save lives. Other machines are designed to kill lives. A machine that’s designed to kill lives never decides, “You know what? I never signed up to shoot peaceful protestors. That sucks and it’s anti-American. I quit.” At best, machines are amoral.

What to think of people who want to destroy life and replace it with a strict unmoving hierarchy with a life-hating king at the top? Don’t they see that they would not truly be alive in such an arrangement? They would not “decide” or “dream” or “change” or “love” or anything else without the permission of someone or some rule who knows nothing about how they really feel. And doesn’t care. Do you?

woman raising her hands

Photo by Marlon Schmeiski on Pexels.com

To destroy all wilderness means humanity would be signing its own death warrant.

The attempt to replace life, which we know works, with machine will eventually fail and fall and take damn near all of humanity with it over that cliff of ever-lasting greed.

Ah, Wilderness.

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Ah, Wilderness.

A6253369-6ABE-4B57-884E-BEFF53F7F505

Author Page on Amazon

Introduction to a Pattern Language of best practices in Teamwork & Collaboration

Index to Pattern Language for Teamwork & Collaboration.

The Myths of the Veritas: The Forgotten Field

The Impossible

 

The URGENT E-mail

31 Sunday May 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, management, politics, psychology, story, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Democracy, Dictatorship, ecology, fiction, greed, pandemic, Sci-Fi, Science fiction, story, USA

man in black holding phone

Photo by Snapwire on Pexels.com

“You ready to head home, Barry?” 

“Yeah, just let me read this URGENT e-mail. Hold on.” 

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS USERID. THIS WAS SENT FROM A DISCONNECTED SERVICE MACHINE. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE DIAL THE TOLL FREE NUMBER AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS MESSAGE. 

“What the heck? I’d better read the rest.” 

WARNING: You have an incompatibility possibility between your X-CalDYS system CWP and your YODEL system HGH. If this continues, you will either cease to exist or your SNABLE account will be cancelled or both or neither. In any case, please fix this immediately by following the proper procedures. Dial 1-800-555-9876 for help. 

“What procedures? What are they talking about? I didn’t even know I had these systems.” 

“Sorry, Barry, I can’t help you on this one. Hey, it’s 8 PM. I’ve been going since six this morning. I’m gone.” 

“See you tomorrow. I’d better call.” 

Barry’s fingers beeped out the tones and then heard the cheery voice of concatenated speech: 

“You have reached the help center. Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line and you’ll be helped by the first available agent. Meanwhile, please listen to these important and informative messages from our CEO!

man wearing blue suit

Photo by Minervastudio on Pexels.com

“Hello fellow employees. Our results for the second quarter of last year are not so far behind the analysts’ expectations for our results for the third quarter of next year as they had been thought to be by the fifth quarter of this year. What does this mean for you? Work harder! Work smarter!! And, whatever you do, help make us the most efficient company in the world so my bonus will be bigger. Next quarter, we….” 

The pre-recorded and completely irrelevant message of the CEO was replaced by the concatenated speech synthesis.

“Thank you for holding. Press 1 for help on Windows, Doors, and Sewer Pipes. Press 2 for help on recipes for Chicken Tetrazzini. Press 3 for general counseling. Press 4 for other help.” 

Barry jabbed the 4 key. 

“Thank you. You have reached general help. Please enter your employee number followed by the Hunkdab.” 

Barry keyed in his employee number. “The what? Hunkdab? This must have been mistranslated from Serbo-Croatian. Probably the pound sign.” 

“That is not a valid employee number. There is no corresponding record in the SNABLE system. Please enter a valid employee number.” 

“What? Maybe the asterisk key?” 

He rekeyed his employee number followed by the asterisk. 

“That is not a valid employee number. There is no corresponding record in the SNABLE system. Please enter a valid employee number.” 

“Oh, crap. What is this all about? Geez. It’s 8:30. I’m outta here.” 

Barry moved the cursor to the entry line and typed “LOGOFF.” 

The computer beeped. “ERROR 95433-J: Machine cannot be logged off by a non-existent user.” 

“What the–? What is this? Some kind of virus?” He hit the power switch. “What a day.” Barry packed up his laptop and opened his office door. 

Beyond the door, the dim hallways and locked doors that typified the drab and depressing departmental decor had disappeared. Instead, Barry looked out on pure whiteness, infinite and featureless in every direction. He blinked. Tentatively, he began to stick the tip of his finger into the white goo, thought better of it, and used his pen instead. The pen felt as though it was going into hot tar. It disappeared beyond the plane of his doorframe. He pulled the pen back. The half that had been enveloped in the whiteness was gone. 

He went back to his desk, grabbed some loose change and tossed a few pennies into the white space. He waited for the coins to hit something far below. Barry cocked his head. A long time went by. There was no sound. He shouted into the whiteness, waiting to hear a tiny echo. 

Nothing. 

“Okay. Okay. Possibility one. I’m crazy. Possibility two. I’m in some really new weird part of the universe. Possibility three. I’m the victim of an elaborate practical joke.” 

close up photography of a snow

Photo by Constantin Dorin Adrian on Pexels.com

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J slid to S’s work bubble and peered at S’s progressively overheated dance. S blinked at J’s presence and joined her hands. The bubble popped. 

woman with face paint with pumpkin

Photo by VisionPic .net on Pexels.com

“Problems with your A-life studies, S?” 

“Yes, Master. Just like all my previous experiments, the organization reaches a certain level of complexity and it self-destructs. Each of the autonomous agents still seems rational but the whole doesn’t work. What am I doing wrong here, Master?” 

J laughed his mighty laugh. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, S. Even I haven’t totally mastered the emergence.” 

“I guess you did have a problem…there were some creations you had to scratch. Just recently, the Sol Project, I believe?” 

“Rumor races faster than fact. I call it the Earth Project after the planet with the intelligent life forms, but you are right, I might well have to scrap it. Same problems you’re having but at a larger scale. The so-called intelligent agents are destroying their own ecosystem.” 

air air pollution climate change dawn

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“Smart!” said S sarcastically. He pondered for a few moments. “Are they too smart? Is that it?” 

J considered. “I don’t think they are too intelligent. Cetaceans are more intelligent and they are doing just fine except for being killed off by the two-legged apes and having their oceans befouled. No, these particular forms grew into this weird combination of being intelligent problem solvers and inventors yet nearly blind to Ka and Karma.” 

“How can they survive at all?” 

“Not completely blind. I said ‘nearly’ blind. They are aware of the fact that they are destroying the ecosystem in a kind of frenzied self-centered greed. They have actually made a scientific study of their own behavior; written books about what they call ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’.” 

“Well, then, with all those insights, what’s the problem?” 

“They aren’t doing anything about it, or at least not enough to survive. Instead of baking more pies, they squabble about the pie they have.”  

“It’s the same thing really in my little experiment. Everybody knows the company has too much bureaucracy and greed and some people do try to fix it but as often as not, the fixes make things worse. But, you obviously already solved it for the company case, right?” 

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Barry found the number for the crisis line, picked up the phone to dial. Then, he noticed that the whiteness was creeping closer like a sea of living, moving, Elmer’s Glue, thick and deadly. And closer. And closer. The office, just a few feet in front of him, was disappearing with a hiss. He dropped the phone, turned, then ran to the emergency exit. Then, he remembered that it was locked from the outside to prevent people from stealing equipment — though, in fact, that had never once happened. 

“What the hell?!” were the last words he uttered. 

2E9EBFDF-8366-41E3-B9D1-47136A7D029B

————————————-

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Blood-Red Blood

24 Sunday May 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, poetry, politics, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

ecology, environment, green, life, love, peace, poem, poetry, war

IMG_2261

Those tortured in the name of Our Dear God,
Racked, burned or sawed, bleed blood-red blood.

Sailing to Freedom, they slaughter
Their trusting brothers with reddish skin
And all their blood is blood-red, blood-red.

The black skin of slaves under the lash
Bleeding the blood-red blood.
Soldiers North in marching blue,
Soldiers South in riding gray,
Bleed their blood-red blood.

person s hands covered with blood

Photo by NEOSiAM 2020 on Pexels.com

The white skin of soldiers entrenched
Breathing the deadly golden mustard gas,
Coughing their lungs, their blood-red blood,
Coughing on their uniforms of blue or gold.

The Cambodian Killing Fields flow bright
With blood-red blood spurting from under yellow skin.

Genocide in Tamil —
Drunken driving in Toledo —
Bombs in Northern Ireland —
Whether the children wear green
Or orange, blood-red is their blood.

woman in black tank top blindfolded

Photo by Thuanny Gantuss on Pexels.com

Only that is clear. Blood is blood.
That, and the tears.
The tears are clear.
But what of hearts and thoughts?

In Flanders Field, so they say,
The poppies grow, red-blood red.
We know where hatred grows —
The fields of greed and fear.
But where on this green earth
Is there a space for love to grow;
For that magic drop of clearly know
That can save so many seas of blood?

B852E891-61E2-4C98-B440-C9718033FE6A

Waterloo and Gettysburg
We can quickly find on a map.
Battlefields, Killing Fields,
Killing Camps, Hiroshima —
These we can pinpoint oh so easily.

Harder to see are the loving fields.
They lay only hidden deep within
That uncharted country of our own hearts.

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I have a question for you.
I have a question for me.
Haven’t we shed enough of each other’s blood?
Are we really still surprised to see
Our enemy bleeds blood-red blood
Just like you and me?
Can we find something else to do now?
Some new game to play?
Are you not bored, like me,
With shoot and burn and slay?
How about a game that does not end in bloody red?
How about a game that ends in green, say?
How about working together to re-make Eden?
Let us make the woods and fields green again
Like a sparkling miracle of loving creation.
I think that might be more fun.
I am getting sick and tired of blood and red and dead.
How about you?

cascade creek environment fern

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Want to play for green instead?

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You gave me no fangs

23 Saturday May 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, poetry, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

earth, ecology, greed, humanity, life, poem, poetry, sustainabilty

wildlife photography of tiger

Photo by Sayantan Kundu on Pexels.com

You gave me no fangs.

You gave me no wings.

You gave me no claws.

Just a bag full of flaws,

And leftover things.

photo of boy in black and red collared shirt

Photo by Mike Sangma on Pexels.com

You favored my brothers;

You favored the others,

Left me only these brains

To fend off the beasts

And fend off the rains.

person riding a bicycle during rainy day

Photo by Genaro Servu00edn on Pexels.com

Cainly, I search and destroy

All my brothers and sisters alike.

With an efficient surgical strike;

Pop them to bits like a bustable toy.

police army commando special task force

Photo by Somchai Kongkamsri on Pexels.com

I chew off my paw,

But see if I care.

It’s the Law, the Law,

Though my cupboard grows bare.

abstract blue clean container

Photo by jamie he on Pexels.com

I foul my teeny, self-built cage,

But I don’t know & I don’t care.

I’m all in, in a self-imposed rage,

And nowise will dare to learn to share.

baby child close up crying

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Unbalanced and crazed, my genius so stable

I comfort myself with a reckless fable:

That Father will Save me, Save me at last

If I destroy it all in a nuclear blast.

680174EA-5910-4F9B-8C75-C15B3136FB06_1_105_c

You seem so bewildered and oh, so amazed,

That I’m so unfit; so  roundly unstable,

Yet, I’m the one whom you ceaselessly hazed

Then pushed away me from the well-stocked table.

cooked pie

Photo by kelvin carris on Pexels.com

Mother, you made me; you made me this way.

Stay and play for the final slay.

I’m loonery toonery sure as I’m shootin’!

Lunatic Fringe? You’re damned well tootin’!

woman with face paint with pumpkin

Photo by VisionPic .net on Pexels.com

So here I go with my terminal act.

Self-destructive and as fat as a fact.

We could’ve had earth as an Eden instead

But I guess I’d rather be greedy — and dead.

photography of maple trees

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com


 

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