Fishing For Cats, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Not exactly fly fishing
But far more fun
And this is exactly
How it is done

Plush fish toy
At the end
Of an elastic
String

Attached to
A plastic poll
I fling it over
The edge of my bed

And watch them
Do their thing
Anticipating
When to leap

In the air
Like acrobats
Determined predators
They’re going to catch that fish

I lure them in
With wiggles
And jiggles
They launch

Like missiles
They clutch
And pull
My rod bows

As if on
The back of a boat
Line tenses up
Tuna or swordfish

It’s all it’s worth
I cast my line out
It’s back and forth
Which one of them

Will catch it first?
(end)

Anneplath and Kelly’s favorite toy is a small plush fish toy with feathers on the end of an elastic string attached to a plastic flexible poll. I lay on my bed and cast the fish over the side, like fly fishing in the ocean or off the back of a fishing boat. I see them jump up like a fish or shark breaching the surface of the water trying to catch the toy. Or sometimes they catch it out of my sight and the line tenses up like fishing. It is fun to watch them pounce and jump and play and try to anticipate where the fish will be so they can catch it.

Swirled Cream, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

The coffee
Ubiquitous
Obligatory
As the shy sun
Peeks over
The horizon
Morning haze
Jealous of
The steam
Rising out
Of the cup
Warming hands
In your cusp
Winter
Kept at bay
Coffee
A must.
(end)

Nothing like starting a winter’s morning inside with a hot cup of coffee watching the haze lift from the steamy windows and dew warming in the morning.

And So On, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

“Simplify” said the guy
If you want to find
Solutions. Too complicated
Leads to more confusion

What is likely has
The least baggage
Minimize any possible
Damage

Make your findings
More accurate
Make your formulas
More articulate

Don’t add more to it
Than necessary, clearly
It is advantageous
Occam paved us

A path the wise must
Avoid inserting thus
Something bigger
Then bigger, and bigger

For this will certainly
Trigger, the cloudiness
Messiness, thoughtless
Meaningless , endless

Problem of infinite regress
And they will never confess
They will never admit
They will never see

The grandaddy of all
Is the Almighty they claim
Whom they never saw
It will surely fall

If everything has a cause
Then God did too
What caused that God
And what bigger God

Caused that God
and so oN, and so ON
and sO ON, and SO ON
and SO ON, anD SO ON

aND SO ON, AND SO ON
But if God didn’t have a cause
Occam would come along
And suggest you take a pause

And ponder a more simple
Solution, as to why
These claims exist
It is because humans falsely insist

That this creature does exist
It is merely a projection of us
A dog barking at its reflection
Our mirror with no connection

Just our wishful thinking.
This entity begs the question
The convenient conclusion
Based on a presupposition.
(end)

Occam’s Razor is the principle that when you are seeking a solution to solve an answer to a gap, the least complicated path, formula with the least complicated starting point, is going to be your most likely answer.

If one is going to claim a God exists, and at the same time cop out to “he is infinitely far more complicated than our tiny human brains, you are starting at a hollow position, a weak position, and you are not solving a problem, you are merely gap filling.

I’d say the more simple explanation as to why humans believe in God/gods/deities super natural, is that they make those things up as a reflection of our own human attributes because we fear being finite, and we want control over our environments. So when nature causes trauma in our life, or we see bad happen and death happen, we falsely assume that there is a super cognition causing or allowing for those things to happen, and we also project our qualities of empathy and compassion in the concepts of heaven, and our sense of revenge and justice in the concept of hell.

And thank you Infidale for inspiring another poem.

The Fallacy of Eloquence, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

You mask your apology
In false fancy, and I can see
The thin veil, others inhale
Aquinas told a tall tale

Cosmological fail, the wind
With no sail, everything
That begins to exist
Has a cause?

Non-Overlapping Magisteria
Caused lots of hysteria
Splitting the baby
To save face

You knew you had no case
You retrofit after the fact
Modern science
To make excuses

To cling to the mast
Of mythology of the past
“Priori” another muse
You chose to use

To confuse, confound
Impress and lead
The unsuspecting
Into your steed

Cheese in the trap
The mouse in your gap
The ace up your sleeve
That I can see

It doesn’t fool me
I am aware of this con
I’m not new to this job
Of intellect you rob

Your bait is stale
It will not prevail
Science the well
Our knowledge will swell.
(end)

I have heard the cosmological argument, mainly from Catholic apologists but other Christians as well. I have heard other apologists try to argue “non overlapping Magisteria ” which means science covers the empirical knowledge while religion covers the moral questions of life”, Bullshit. Science also can and does explain where our empathy and compassion come from too.

I have to admit these arguments are wordy and fancy, but are still a house of cards that are easily knocked down by science.

Lets Pretend, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

The stick
Of the insect
The eyes
Of the butterfly
Scarlet king
Mimicry
Coral kills
Venom skills
Chameleons
Change
With wide range
Playing dead
Possum wins
Adaptation
Is the game
(end)

#vss365

Just at the end
Of a mid morning
Storm as suddenly
As it raged, it left

It is tempting
To believe in
A magical being
The spectrum shift

Light refraction lift
Hues from red to blue
Arching over the sky
Almost an apology

For the prior rage
Indigo and violet
Fueled by sun’s outlet
Rays colors amaze

In awe of nature
I don’t have to ponder
A cosmic hero
That causes thunder

I find the wonder
In scientific fact
I don’t pretend
It’s God’s act
(end)

Double Sided, By Brian37(AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brinrrs37 on Twitter)

Your themes of love and hate
Being the same epithet
Herr dear sperm donor
Herr beloved father

You were mad
You didn’t get to know him
He morphed into the Fuhrer
The wretched marriage between life and death

The angel food cake
The frosting black snake
The baker lied to you
Wine glass filled with cobra’s brew

Punching down the cap
The cork bouquet, city sewer rat
Rotted plumbs make you numb
Saki, the oven’s hari-kari

Not disemboweled, yet quite clean
Dandelions invade plush green
Deceptive to say, you wanted to breath
Lucifer and God, both on the same team

You couldn’t face either
Both were the enemy and suitor
Belonging to the same union
Wedding ring onyx coal ash

But which one to join?
Torn between two lovers
Reviled, the tag team players
Not an episode of Survivor

When I was slightly older
Hess was my father
A high school biology teacher
His students knew nothing of Amon Göth

When not in front of class
60 orbs could not observe
Colleagues also unaware
The beatings I had to bare

He swam every day
In the red and white label
The toppled hour glass
Black widow red beer gut

In one old faded photo
Of me he held on his shoulders
I looked like I couldn’t be happier
But I lived in Goring’s museum

He told me tall tales
Of his North Korea service
How he lost three digits
And partial left ear hearing

Proud to be a Marine
Anchor skewered earth
Eagle perched magnetic north
He really did once serve

But combat he never saw
The truth was a bandsaw
In shop class, he turned it on
Distraction, 3 fingers gone

Desperate so to please
I was quiet as can be
When his eyes grew bloodshot
Slurred speech, ink blots

I didn’t know
What I had done
I was David Banner’s son
Herr McGee got nothing done

If it had pleased him
Under my fingernails
He’d have shoved
Slivers of bamboo too

Brass knuckle words
Intolerant of my sensitivity
Mounting insecurity
Why did he adopt me?

One day he left
And never came back
My mom lied to me
About how he really died

At first confused
Feeling abandon
Angry for that
Glad now, he was gone

The abuse lingers on
Held hostage by my neurons
My life his transplanted liver
Hannibal’s fava bean cage

I had to mind his drawings
My head in a jar
In cobwebbed antique car
Formaldehyde lily pad self storage

I can now only manage
The snarling growling
Howling rabid memory
Of what that coyote did to me

Fleeting electron smiles
In Whitehall Bay, I’d sale for a while
In a dinghy, he bought me as a child
Glistening sunlit waters, briefly escaped his bile.
(end)

My dad turned into a monster when he got drunk. His students never knew the real him, nor did his fellow teachers. But I was painfully aware of what a bully he was. It really hurt when his kids lavished praise on him to me, because that made me feel like I was broken. I know now it was not me, he was just using them to protect himself. Plath and I of course lead very different lives. She excelled at academics while I struggled. We both were raised middle class. Our dads died while we were young. But that is where the similarities end. Plath never really got to know her dad, but I did. I can however agree with her love hate to some extent. My bastard of a father did buy me nice things, like the small boat, I used to sale solo to get away from him for a morning afternoon. But I can so much feel her imagery of the love/hate complex with her father.

You’d have to read her poems “Daddy” and “Colossus” to get her imagery. But my dad became the “Hulk” when he got drunk, and not in a good way. He drank Budweiser, thus the “red and white” label, and the black widow hour glass reference to the red label hour glass Bud had. And of course the “Hannibal” reference is to the movie “Silence Of The Lambs”. My choices under him, were to be quiet, stay away from him, only play happy with me when he needed a prop to impress his friends. Or go outside and get beaten up by the bullies, or stay inside and eventually get beaten by him.

I outgrew my fear of him long since. But you don’t get over it. I still have anxiety and trust issues even 40 years later.

“Punching down the cap” is a method of grape crushing for making wine. People no longer use their feet for sanitary reasons. It is usually now a wooden or metal pole with a flat disk with holes in it to push the grapes down in a vat. “City sewer rat” is basically the dark thoughts Plath had about that finally and unfortunately caught up with her.

The third stanza again, is basically the bittersweet notion of what joy she was/is to read, but again, the dark side caught up to her. The WW2 references are about her poems, and her grappling with her German heritage knowing what the Nazis had done. Her dad of course, was not part of that though. Amon Göth was a death camp commander and subsequently tried and executed after his capture at the end of WW2. My dad was a bully, and that Is why I equated him to Hess and Göth.

The Dead Don’t Leave, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

The dead don’t leave
There is no reprieve
He’s meant to deceive

The hounds of hell
Cast a dark spell
Blood fills the well

Three headed monster
This barking beast
Froths and drools

Gnashing his teeth
Snarls and growls
Snapping it’s jaws

Razor sharp claws
He keeps them in
Cerberus gnaws

On your flesh
Fire his breath
Forever your death.
(end)

I absolutely DO NOT believe in a hell of any kind, nor this mythological Cerberus 3 headed dog. But I like to practice writing poetry to keep my mind sharp, and was inspired by another poet writing about other mythological beasts.

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

This thing, this grey matter
This albatross, this dead weight
This filing cabinet
This runner

Bicycle courier, broken spokes
Flat tire, no pump, all that data
Suffocated by that enforcer
Putting a plastic bag over my creativity

Why damn it! Why! Why! Why!
Why can’t I get it down, these words
Doled out like a blind black jack dealer
With no table, spilling the chips everywhere

And you cling to me, inside me
My city hall, office of records
Duplicate, triplicate, lost it
Shredded it, no record of it

I would pull that fire alarm
Just to get your attention
But you just put your feet up
On your desk, taking your time

To come to my office, your office
Our office, just to dump the file
Into the trash can, just to spite me
And there isn’t a thing I can do

Unless, I turn out the lights
Cut off the power
Burn the building down
Drop you off the roof

Hey, do you want to
Go out for a drink after work?
I know this great place
I know the bartender

He’ll give you all the free drinks
You want. And snacks? No problem
Bowls of your favorite pills
Take as many as you like

Don’t worry about the tab
It’s on the house. Tomorrow
You’ll get your severance pay
But don’t look for references.
(end)

This poem is about struggling with my maladies. I have A.D.D. and high anxiety, plus a brain that doesn’t do what I want it do to, when I want it to. It shoots through the roof when I am writing poetry, and can easily lose my thought, misspell a word and miss it, or completely lose my thought and sometimes even an entire poem. And although I have not been diagnosed, I also think I might have slight dyslexia. Not to mention this can cause me to be depressed.

The imagery is about my neurons in my brain. I imagine them as a bicycle courier company that is unorganized, misfiring, scattered and disjointed, and getting frustrated with myself. I will say one thing about this format on this page, it does help reduce my stress level by not being busy in looks, plus having spellcheck. Although even with spellcheck I still can miss something.