Almost every day I read some story by someone complaining about the huge income disparity between the mega-rich and the ordinary citizen. Usually the complaint isn’t about the person who has worked and succeeded and is worth a few million. The concern is about the people who have stumbled into a few billion. It is hard to deny that these kinds of disparities create a feeling that society is spinning out of control.

 

However, as often as we worry about this stuff, I can’t help feeling that we are worrying about the wrong things. You don’t have to look very hard to find that a lot of the super-rich are pretty darn unhappy. They wind up getting trapped by their wealth. They have huge houses, lots of cars and maybe a few yachts. But all this stuff does is wall them in. They become isolated from the real world, trade relationships like stocks, can’t trust anyone to actually like them, and become physically and emotionally stunted.

 

They need a retinue to go to the movies or a restaurant, wear disguises to hide from the press, and need security contingents to protect them from their fellow citizens.

 

There is something to be said for climbing a mountain rather than taking a helicopter to get to the top. The view of the world through binoculars is less impressive when you don’t really know what you’re looking at.

There are too many examples to list of celebrities and super-rich who die alone and unhappy. Many never really had a relationship with their children and spent most of their married lives showing off trophy wives in museums that posed as houses.

I say, let’s work to create an economy where everyone who is willing to work at it, will be able to provide well for themselves and their families. But it is pointless to worry about the super-rich. They are stuck in their misery and there is not much we can do about it. Most of them probably need a roadmap to find the bathroom in their forty-two room houses and haven’t had a sit-down meal with their family in twenty years. They are lucky they have servants who love them.

I wrote Master of the Universe (In the Cat’s Eye, 2009) to focus on the lives of the “rich and famous”. How many of you would like to swap with this guy?

Glenn K. Currie

 

Master of the Universe

 

He lay on the large bed

Surrounded by pillows.

A ceiling fan circled above,

Scattering the stale air.

A shaft of sunlight exposed dust, dancing.

He could hear doctors and lawyers

Whispering in the next room,

While reporters hung by the gate

Waiting for a story.

Gardenias sent by his third wife,

Wilted in an expensive vase

In the kitchen, servants gathered,

Talking about the future.

Happy not to be him.

 

They say when you reach a certain age you start to look backward more often than you look ahead. Perhaps this is because it is more comforting to look back.

I recently wrote a poem (Looking at 16 from 70) about looking back to age sixteen. This was a time when everything seemed ahead of me, and yet the world was a confusing place where emotions and hormones made relationships an intimidating walk through a minefield. I was a child trying to act like an adult.

Most of us have lived through a similar period. Love, mixed with sex, was a  new encounter which became so overwhelming during those years that common sense was forced to live in a tiny corner of a very cluttered mind.

The terrible truth about our teenage years is we often make decisions with little understanding of consequences. We only find out if we made the right ones when we have travelled far down the path of adulthood.

Sometimes, however, we just aren’t ready to make decisions and we pick up our blanket and go home. And we file away a memory that ages well when mixed with the Beach Boys and summer starlight.

Glenn K. Currie

 

Looking at 16 from 70

 

Do you remember when we lay

Beneath the summer stars?

Cassiopea gently lighting

An ebbing tide and the Gloucester dunes.

 

I thought I might die that day,

My breath so short and tight.

We were children swimming

In an ocean so deep.

 

Soft silver bathed our bodies,

As we developed in a dark room

Of desperate expectations,

And uncertain exposure.

 

But we were children still,

Finally shaking the sand

From a blanket that couldn’t cover

Our clumsy innocence.

 

Do you remember when we lay,

Holding back the sea.

Before the tide came in

And washed away the stars.

 

Copyright 2014 Glenn K. Currie

 

As October approaches I am putting up a new poem, October Walk.

This is a beautiful time in New England, filled with pastels that warm the crisp air to a perfect temperature. But like everything else in life, there is no free lunch. October will be followed by the darker days of late fall and winter. And while these months have their own stark beauty, the colors of the world will quickly fade from our sight.

The seasons play with us here: filled with promises that may be kept or broken. It is hard to read the leaves of autumn.

Glenn K. Currie

  

October Walk

It is the season

Of diminished expectations,

When the world comprehends

Its limitations.

Streets are filled

With fallen dreams,

Swept up by colder winds.

 

I feel them tugging

At my trousers.

An undertow, gently dragging me

Into a sea of color,

Then spitting me out

In a whirling breath

Of devils at play.

 

I am part of a canvas

Painted by revelations.

Tiny pieces from the palette

Float on the arc

Of the universe,

Then scatter around me,

Fading in the evening light.

 Copyright 2014 Glenn K. Currie

 

Sometimes we get lost in life. We get buffeted by divorce, disease and disillusionment, and wake up one day to realize all the maps were wrong.

Asking directions doesn’t usually help much. A New England farmer spoke volumes when he told the tourist “you can’t get there from here”. Well you can’t get “there” until you know where and what “there” is. And in that is the challenge and the adventure.

I wrote The Journey (In the Cat’s Eye, 2011)  to share a hard truth about life. There are no real answers. All we can do is persevere, and try to make the best decisions we can with the little knowledge we are given. Good luck to each of you on your journeys.

Glenn K. Currie

The Journey

 

When first the waves washed over me,

I knew not what they’d bring,

I floated free in quiet rest,

‘Til the world came rushing in.

 

I awoke to drum beats calling me,

The same that ruled my heart,

And the youthful soul that marched therein,

Followed an unmarked chart.

 

Each step required another choice,

Offering different ways,

Decision trees flowed endlessly,

A spider’s web of grays.

 

Soon I came to the ocean’s edge,

Staring out across the sea,

Hoping to find a pilot wise,

And a ship to carry me.

 

But no one knew what lay across,

There was no where or when,

Even the stars could only say,

Where I had already been.

 

The truth I found, was I alone

Must bridge the start and end,

Writing my life on grains of sand,

The winds of chance my pen.

 

 

 

We have some old covered bridges in New Hampshire. They are remnants of a different time when travel was slower and shelter less frequent and available.

They are a piece of our history that represents the character and  resourcefulness that helped shape the state’s well-deserved reputation for independence.

Tourists come and photograph them, drive across them and observe their quaintness, but most don’t really understand them.

The Covered Bridge is a new poem that I wrote to try to capture the soul of these beautiful old structures.

Glenn K. Currie

 

                                            The Covered Bridge

 

             I listen to wheels chatter as they cross,

Gossips complaining of rough treatment,

Yearning to hear the songs of the highway.

The bridge creaks and moans in return,

Complaining about the fools

Who think it is just a way

To get from here to there.

But the wind and rain and snow

Whisper that this is where

You learn their secrets.

The time portal where you can stand

In the storms and inhale

The life breath of New England.

 

Copyright 2014 Glenn K. Currie

Haikus are an interesting form of poetry that can say a lot in few words. Writing rhyming haikus is an additional challenge. I am including here a series of new rhymers that will help deflect the accusations that I don’t write enough in rhyme. I write in the format that seems appropriate to the message.

I had a lot of fun with these and I hope you will also.

Copyright 2014 Glenn K. Currie

Rhyming Haiku

Duel                                       

When the sun rises,

They meet, who each despises,

Death meting prizes.

                                                                       Collision

The phone in her ear,

Made it hard for her to hear

The greyhound so near.

Ancestors

Pictured in the frames,

Relatives no one can name.

Blood all that remains.

Adrift

Each new flake of snow,

Wind taking it where it can go,

Lost in ukiyo.

Inheritance

Winter does bequeath

Snow above, black ice beneath,

Travelers enwreathed.

Spelunking

Out of your cortex,

Accompanied by dim bulbs,

Dropped into vortex.

Buffets



The buffet’s arrays,

Display best ways to portray

Yesterday’s replays.

This posting is also from A Boy’s First Diary (Snap Screen Press, 2007). It was quite a wake-up call to us both as we headed into the uncertain waters of puberty.

 

Glenn K. Currie

 

                                                    Bare Hill Observatory 

 

Last week, Billy and I,

Went up to Bare Hill Observatory.

We were playing Indian scouts,

And sneaking through the woods.

 

Just behind the tower,

We saw two big kids.

They were on a blanket,

In the pine grove.

 

They were playing kissy face,

Like you see in the movies.

They were missing clothes.

Then Billy stepped on a stick.

 

We ran back down the hill.

Nobody chased us.

Girls look a lot different,

When they get older.

 

We’ve been to the observatory,

Three times this week.

But nobody is there.

I guess they got cold.

 

I wrote “A Boy’s First Diary”(Snap Screen Press, 2007) in 2004. It is a collection of true incidents from my childhood. I wrote it in non-rhyming quatrains to make it easier for kids to read, but also felt adults would have a good time with it. It is a collection of events that happened in those formative years of 4^th and 5^th grades related from the viewpoint of an eleven year old. The book has been extremely successful both with parents and boys and girls.

Glenn K. Currie

Campsite Toilets

I don’t like the toilets when we go camping.

They’re like Uncle Edwin’s outhouse, only bigger.

I worry about falling through the seat.

They make the opening too big for kids.

Grown-ups don’t have to worry as much,

They can cover the whole seat easy.

But kids have to balance on the edge,

And some of the holes are pretty deep.

Last night I had to go really bad,

So I took the flashlight and walked to the toilet.

I was sitting on the edge and lost my balance.

I might have been playing with the flashlight.

The flashlight fell down into the hole.

It sank slowly and the light shined up for a while.

It was a pretty horrible death.

In the dark, I knocked our toilet paper in the hole, too.

I used some leaves from a bush.

I hope they weren’t poison ivy.

I stubbed my toe twice walking back.

It was really dark and scary.

In the morning, Dad was looking for the toilet paper.

I told him the flashlight was in the hole.

He was more upset about the toilet paper.

We used Time magazine until Dad went to the store.

I apologize if the last two posts have been a little bit on the depressing side. I should clarify that in "Immortality" I was not making any predictions on what happens after we leave this world. It was strictly my view of what it would be like to remain in this world for ever and ever and ever.

I also would like to put you on notice that apparently my blog can only hold 100 posts at a time and we are getting close to that. I assume it will drop off the older posts. Since many of them are not "time sensitive", if you have not reviewed the old ones or want to keep some of them, please take another look and if you like, please make copies.

Also, I will try to add a little humor in the next couple of posts.

Regards,

Glenn

 

Nations and the world as a whole are about to slip into a long period of mourning.

We will mourn for all the lives lost in senseless fighting over slight differences in religion, or strips of land that truly belong only to those buried beneath.

We will mourn for those seeking power as the ultimate goal in their short angry lives, and for those who stand at the crossroads in world affairs and are never able to make decisions.

We will mourn for those who stand and watch while their neighbor’s homes burn, and for those innocents caught in the flames.

We will mourn for the loss of what seemed a simpler world where life was more personal and we shared a dream that people could live in peace.

And we will mourn for ourselves and our families, as our children and grandchildren face a scene of growing conflagration.

Heartbreak (In the Cat’s Eye, 2009) is one of the few “tankas” that I have written.  I thought the format fit well for grieving. It seems especially applicable today as our world slips away from us, and the participants “stare sightlessly”.

Glenn K. Currie

 

Heartbreak

(Tanka)

 

The mourning tree blooms

In the season of despair.

Black buds unfolding,

As ashen roots drink teardrops,

Emptied from the soul.

 

The surprise of war,

Is in the eyes of the dead.

Young men, immortal,

Suddenly gone in a flash,

Staring sightlessly.