remote telemetry

to the skilled swordsmith
black body radiation
murmurs "martensite"

of waves and quanta

gazing at embers
Black Body Radiation
got Max Planck thinking

sinker

waves  close over me
if I dare fully exhale
I'm a little dense

reference frame

false frame of reference
driving next to the freight train
suspended in space

hedonia

hot tub, snow flurries
my beloved cuddled close
as good as it gets

this life

it's a fearsome thing
to love that which Death must take
all is transience

damaged record

McCain's consistent
always advocating war
fill in: place, motive...

market forces

Nasrullah concedes
ransom creates incentives
for more kidnappings

fish rot from the head

Rob Ford's fatty growths
aren't only on his butt
one's between his ears

wasted resource

billions of man-hours
commuting inexpertly
Luddite fools' errand

parallel processors

Pinker demonstrates
normal folk are of two minds
part-time logicians

bootless

who defines "consent"?
criminalizing drunk sex
won't stop college kids

toast

this party's over
what was Weed is hot ashes
drifting on the wind

ptolemeic

Kissinger's sincere
in his self-admiration
the rest's tactical

parasites

ethically obtuse
freeloading Marin parents
don't vaccinate kids

rationalized

back-filling reasons
the "great confabulator"
dwells in your right-brain

medical malpractice

hearts ripped--still beating--
from sacrificial victims
keep Cheney undead

I'm up here

in conversation
extroverted engineers
stare at your shoe-tops

because you were strangers in the land of Egypt

if you do it right
travel teaches empathy
for the immigrant

now Titanium/sapphire would have been sexy!

where's the excitement? 

detumescent iPhone6 

bends in your pocket

literalist III

nothing too subtle
Beowulf shunned metaphor
disarming Grendel

literalist II

heroically blunt
Beowulf shunned metaphor
disarming Grendel

half-way in

fiscal disunion
with monetary union
stuck it to the PIGS

energetic!

massive 'though he is
Gregory tried tunneling
through Scott's Suburban

faking it

tips for the naif
if her soles aren't scuffed yet
compliment the shoes

nice sear!

CO2 laser
sears your message on their meal
and into their brains

full fathoms five

sir John Frankin's ship
the Terror? or Erebus?
Ice takest, Ice giv'st

IP dystopia

Robin Wright's "Congress"
"CoolWorld" crossed with "TheMatrix"
drawn by Peter Max

towering

Achilles' wrath
might have drowned in Medea's
Hell hath no fury

against type

Euripides knew
Medea was heroic
Jason was a jerk

militarized

bayonets for cops?!
my Homeland feels less "secure"
and more "occupied"

born conservatives

discovering rules
tots over-generalize
malforming past tense

half measures

fiscal disunion
while sharing a currency
do Scots envy Spain?

why is this flight different from all other flights?

...in all other rows
either sit straight or recline
exit rows recline

Words and Rules

studying language
what can we learn about mind?
Pinker introspects

atonement

tempting biohack
RoundUP-ready milkweed strains
could save the monarch

masterful

tactical lactone
enforcing propinquity
Woodward's reserpine

gilt II

vulgar opulence
Putin's puppet in Kiev
lived large as a Czar

gilt

vulgar opulence
Yanukovych thought himself
a new Antoinette

insider

where's Pat Roberts from?
roots nurtured on the prairie
wither in DC

sold!

pardoning Nixon
Ford denied a quid pro quo
wanna buy a bridge?

unaccountable

Ford pardoned Nixon's
unenumerated crimes
that wound's still bleeding

vicarious atonement

Andy Coulson's blood
expiates the Murdochs' sins
they're untouchable

clock

in zirconia
uranium will transmute
into lead, slowly

literalist

where steel proved useless
Beowulf proved his mettle
disarming Grendel

saturation

"apolitical"?
if you're paying attention
no such animal

supererogatory lies

Feinstein's own monster 

John Brennan lies to Congress 

we should hang them both

naaseh v'nishmah

mask of adulthood
protects the adolescent
inside each of us

turning blue

Eric Garcetti
raised LA's minimum wage
cyanotic state

vapid

Hollywood modules
car-chases, sex, explosions
leave scant need for plot

souvenir

playa-grey spackle
clogs sinuses, ears and pores
days after the Burn

second time as farce

ISIS seems intent
on refighting Karbala
this time, no victors

no more mountains

Robert Burns Woodward
after vitamin B-12
drank himself to death

two towers

Harvard's faculty
lured Pinker across the street
out of Chomsky's sphere

profound influence

so far up his ass
Cheney made Dubya's lips move
digital control

jury-rigged

forget "Dollo'sLaw"
hummingbirds can taste sugars
(but not glutamate)

etiology

Marx and Piketty

knew the root of all Evil

"pecunia est"

piddling

playing to forecast
Walt's to (almost) Manzanar
best flight of the week

grazing

every chlorophyl
comes with free magnesium
salad bar/ore vein

Labor Day

elsewhere, folks got high
but Scott's crush on Walt's pt. launch
goes unrequited

keeps on giving

playa-grey play-doh
clogs all one's orifices
days after the Burn

small differences in large values

less flat than they look
whether making camp by night
or XC LZs

conditioning

Skinnerite project
Scott warns be before sneezing
to earn a cold beer

new age

cheap iron weapons
democratized violence
copper futures crashed

too late

lenghtening shadows
caught Robert on LonePine peak
neither here nor there

Eureka!

Travertine HotSprings
Burners stacked in like cordwood
displace the water

flashback

LonePine peak's South face
feels much like el Capitan
before all the bolts

pristine

LonePine peak's south face
feels much like el-Capitan
before all the bolts

clarity

clear view of the Wall
from the Alabama Hills
flawless atmosphere

get high, go far

once I'm through 10K
supplemental oxygen
sweetens every breath

out there

drifting off to sleep
for want of ambient noise
blood drums in my ears

plated

dressed as for Caesar
one perfect leaf of romaine
sets up the whole meal

highlights

grilled steak and syrah
with deconstructed Caesar
pretty much don't suck

too late

lengthening shadows
drove me off the Sierra
to fart up the road

except in Korea

dogs cease to be "game"
once we're domesticated
old married couple

branding

Israelis' headgear
party affiliation
clear as gang colors

carpe diem

All is transience 

whether piss-holes in the snow 

or a child's giggle

port-able

Disembodied mind 

can survive even braindeath 

power of the Book

philistine

Damned Porlock merchant 

demolished Xanadu's domes 

to collect a bill

chicken dinner!

Faculty roulette 

one grants tenure to Dennett 

another gets Searle

morning after

Playa-caked Burners 

clog California's highways 

and foul the HotSprings

CHANGE

The Times' editors 

by not endorsing Cuomo 

tar him as corrupt

amateurs

Well-tuned parasites 

lull their host's immune system 

deerflies are just crass

kludge

Watching myself think 

some pretty good sub-routines 

do most of the work

marking time

Hanging in the mall 

estranged from field, surf and woods 

youth's lost on the young

cost-of-business

Billion-dollar fines 

dent Halliburton profits 

the way gnats dent tanks

primum inter pares

Allies not proxies

multiply our influence 

when our fight's their own

renege

Quietly, off screen

Beijing's murdering HongKong

"TwoSystems" as farce

consequences

OneState "solution"

makes demographic warfare

inevitable

horizons

Our mortality 

sets bounds on our achievements 

not our ambitions

cheaper than compliance

BP will appeal

enforcement of the plain law 

on Gross Negligence

democracy in Islam

The carpenter's son 

claims His kingdom here on earth 

in Indonesia

sinat chinam

ISIS seems intent 

on re-fighting Karbala

this time, no victors

sated

Playa-grey spackle 

clogs sinuses, ears and pores 

days after the Burn

redundant

Hollywood modules 

car-chases, sex, explosions 

leave scant need for plot

Positive feedback

Positive feedback 

methane freed from permafrost 

cranks up the greenhouse

pest

Galapagos Finch
unless we rein in Bot Flies
doomed as the dodo

Labor Day '14

Saturday morning
Sierras are in deep shadow
of their own wave-cloud

strange field

green vegetation
marks most strange LZs'* low edge

*not GlassFactory

chacun a son gout

Scott and I differ
on what makes a haiku "lewd"
non disputandum

damnable

Mayonaise can't fix
the cook's original sin
over-cooked salmon

long in city pent

hanging in the mall
estranged from field, surf and woods
youth's lost on the young

new desert

migrating flora
tumbleweed have claimed Tracy
this drought's serious

counter-Spinoza

Liberty College
Generation Joshua
preaches sedition

special regime

bumblebees in flight
recapturing vortices
go where fixed wings can't

realistic

let's take it stepwise
aspire to love everyone
start with the nice ones

is it safe?

dim on the concept
if it isn't redundant
it's not a back-up

funny sort of "normal"

rough gig for a mind
conjured for a brain's purpose
conscious it must die

hypocrite

governor Parry
refused to let Jesus in
crops rot in the fields

nature vs nurture II

body as heirloom
my patrimony of flesh
maintenance required

changes

lock, stock, and barrel
Yabusaki Nursery
vanished like a dream

coded

ancient Greek sculptors
endowed gods like little boys
satyrs were the joke

nature vs nurture

body as heirloom
can't credit the gym wholly
it was my fathers'

rain check?

August BBQ?
dude, it's a flying weekend
call me! (when it rains)

teleological ju-jitsu

Deuteronomist
rather than accept defeat
co-opts history

winge II

stock BurningMan winge
"it was way better last year"
and  always will be

winge

stock BurningMan winge
"it was way better last year"
and it always was

the Long Way

Slide to Squaw Valley
by way of Emerald Bay
tests one's cojones

irregular process

tortured Saudi
confessing to sorcery
just got beheaded

in four acts

trite cloud-suck story:
-relief -elation -concern
-where's the horizon?

social network

Zuckerburg stammered
"are you seeing anyone?"
the rest's history

passive

chromium-laced steel
tightly-adherent oxide
forestalls corrosion

zealots

the Etzion Four
hell-bent on Utopia
risked Armageddon

purge

anti-corruption
vitue? or cynical ploy
to purge Xi's rivals?

conflict prone

middle of the road
rather than each in his lane
annihilation!

aaah

masseurs score (sometimes)
with matrons at the health spa
(you get what you knead)

dated

Churchill's racism
clatters on the modern ear
dysphoneously

schmuck

unlike other chimps
built for sperm competition
we're ornamental

default

where triggers are sparse
thermals are free to grow huge
think "Kansas hailstorms"

negative feedback

ebola outbreak
stopped when the hospital shut
for want of staffers