Stanthorpe, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Not quite the outback
But the edge of the bush
Slightly hilly in places
Aussie Mayberry you’d say

I took a ride in a side car
On my host’s motorcycle
He whizzed around corners
Zig zagging while I sat low

Two nights in a row
I spent there at their
Bed and breakfast
Their backyard my boon

My insomnia
Brought no gloom
I sat all night
In the lawn chair

Staring up
At the clear sky
The beaming moon
Charlotte must have been

Her name, those dazzling
Children, in the millions
I had never seen
So many, crowded

No elbow room
No city glare
To block my view
The stars all knew

I was looking at you
And your children too
Waving hi to me
Pristine quietude

Contemplating nothing
In awe and wonder
Glimmering shower
Cosmos white

Rind stones
Down under
If upside down
Then why, why

Couldn’t I
Fall into them
Hug them
Be swarmed by them

Beaming Charlotte
Bending space/time
You slowly creep away
Daylight robs me again.
(end)

I visited Stanthorpe in Queensland Australia, which is a tiny Mayberry type place, you could say. One day my host took me on a motorcycle ride which had a side car. It was neat sitting that low, but I can honestly say he did take some of the corners a bit too fast for me.

Anyway the highlight for me, and I am really not into small rural towns. But that time of year the clear night time sky was absolutely full of stars, I really had never seen so many. I really didn’t care about sleep at that point. I sat in the chair, drank my beer, smoked my cigarettes, and just looked up. My mind calm and at ease and really comforting. It was amazing.

Pele Meets Prometheus, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Mammy Fire
Dwarf Corkscrew
Hibiscus corona color
The acropolis

Wants to meet her
The chimney sweep
Has no chance
Forever the flickers dance

Diamond Head
Plato’s homestead
Nero burned Rome
But left Athens alone

Siva Afi
Across the ocean
Their eyes meet
Kindred kindle

The flint is sparked
The satin floats
The heat of flesh
Their bodies mesh

The monk immolates
Joan tied to the stake
It’s all a protest
They cant resist

White dots
Sparkle at midnight
Emotions crackle
Spectators Orion

Little and big
Neither wear the fig
Two octopi
Intertwined

Oxygen
Fuels them
5 alarms
Smoke detector

Dejected
It’s given up
It knows this pair
Will never stop.
(end)

North Atlantic Krakatoa, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

#molten rock
The hot cold
Of isolation
Burning nothing
Blistering everything
On an island
Surrounded by
Icebergs cutting
Into your side
Salty hypothermia
Bleeding lifeboats
That are not there
Molten dry ice
Your tears
Nobody hears.

It’s been somewhat
40 years since
Pat belted out
Lines of cold shoulders
And fevers tonight
And not giving in
You want to give me
Your love
But Leonardo
The king of the world
Died, and it is love
To you,
That has lied.
(end)

Of course the title is metaphor for the hot and cold extremes, and our emotions while in love. There are the obvious references to the Titanic here of course. “Pat” is referring to “Pat Benatar” and her song “Fire And Ice”.

Krakatoa is in Indonesia. And of course the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic.

Garble De Goo, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

In a couple of days
I just might ask
A question of you

At that point
My heart will race
My chest will pound

Incoherent
Will be my sound
You are you
You know who you are

I know this is silly
For you to make me giddy
One leg at a time
That’s what they say

About pants
But that doesn’t matter
You are you
I’ll be flustered through

My words trip wires
Spilling off my tongue
Like molasses, dripping
Spittle, star struck stupor

You are you
What do I do
What do I say
Garble de goo

My Brian name is
Meet to nice you
I you, you, um, um
Garble de goo

I don’t know
I don’t know
I don’t know
What to do

You are you
Everyone knows you
I say don’t what you say
To you, it’s garble de goo

Relax you say?
No way, no way
You are you
All I have is garble de goo.
(end)

I have long since accepted that the famous people one might run into are just people like you. They hold no special powers, they need food, and have emotions and family and do the bathroom business just like you.

And I also know that they are not your personal friends either. Liking someone’s work, say their sports, their acting, their comedy, their paintings, their business, their work, only means you like their work. You are not their family, you are not their friends. If you are blurring that line then you need help, that kind of projection is not good.

Having said that, though, even when you are well adjusted, and you know they are not your family or friends, and you simply like their work. Even I still can get star struck at the prospect of meeting someone of whom you like their work.

I made a complete fool of myself once when I met one of my favorite authors Christopher Hitchens, asked for his autograph but did not have anything for him to sign my Evolve Fish license plate. I stumbled my words trying tell him I’d be right back.

Ok fast forward to today. In a couple of days I may have a chance to ask one of my favorite actresses from my childhood a question. Fortunately it will be submitted in text so I don’t have to worry about my speech. But the prospect of her saying my name directing her answer to me through her page, well, lets just say I could die a happy man minutes later.

Another heads up. I keep my page simple. At the bottom of each page there is an unfortunately tiny print that reads “Next Page”. I wish it were bigger but I am afraid to screw with it. I lost a couple of posts when I first set this page up the first day playing around with the format. So I am very timid messing with things. Point is if you want to get to the next page, just look at the bottom of each page in the center “Next page”.

I just looked at my all time views. Get this. 5 view originating from Saudi Arabia. Holy crap. I don’t care if it is the same person 5 times. It just proves they do not have a tight lid as they might think. And whomever is the individual viewing my page from that country, stay safe. I have seen other people on other social media who live in fear and silence that live there but express on line they wish they could change things. I will always value anyone from any country who values freedom and art and poetry. I hate that people like in China, or Cuba have to live in fear of arrest or injury or even death for expressing opinions country to political leaders or the state.

I wish Saudi Arabia and Iran would lose their theocracies and get with the western world and open up. Especially for the welfare and education of their girls and women.

It saddens me to see here in America the growing control over the lives of females, and the rising anti intellectual anti science growing on the right. I am very blasphemous of every religion, even including Jews and Hinduism and Buddhism. As well as Islam.

Having said that, my biggest priority is human rights above and beyond my personal positions on what someone else might claim. I abhor violence. I was bullied as a kid for being different, for being sensitive. So I can only imagine what it is like for someone risking their lives in closed dictatorships and theocracies to even look at something like my poetry here.

But claims to me are just that, claims, until they gain universal consensus through scientific method and independent peer review. And the truth is, be you Jewish or Hindu or Buddhist or Christian or Muslim. Be you born in China or Argentina, or Kenya or Australia or Japan, or Mexico we all started out as the same species in our current form, in Africa some 200,000 plus years ago, long before politics and religion were written ideas. Long before the idea of nations.

OUR DNA is the same. Our differences are only that which we mostly get sold from birth, long before we can formulate adult critical thinking skills. I think most humans are good. But unfortunately we also far to often tend to hide behind bullies out of fear of the other, and we like any other species are tribal.

I fear for my liberal friends in Iran who are fighting for female equality. I fear for Saudis who do not like living in their theocracy. I fear for Chinese citizens who can be yanked off the street and be held for years over trivial things or disappear completely. I fear for those in North Korea who secretly hate Un but have to live in silence. I fear for Russians who fear Putin and also have family who live in Ukraine. I fear for Ukrainians who live in occupied territory.

I feel sad when I think about these things. But I also think of John Lennon’s song Imagine, and that lets me know there are good people in every nation, and it is only the greedy and those who lust for power that oppress others. Stay safe Saudi reader/s, stay free in your thoughts as well. Your brains belong to you, and you are allowed to use them independently.