Echoes from 73 years ago ~
The road to the Truth,
Is thick with uncut weeds;
As none has traveled there
In some considerable time.
Isaac Newton · 1675
"The Line"
Oft' I sat alone in wonder
Sand and stone
The blocks which thundered
Those hundred thousand men
That numbered
Crews who built
Great monuments
To keep their King's
Eternal slumber
Ancient Masters
O'er the land
Strode immortal
Through the sands
Tantalizing Modern Man
To peer amidst
These Pyramids.
Discovery 1
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Naked
Alone
Out of
The
Fiery hells
Of those
Trillion trillion
Suns
Into the
Absolute Zero
Of the
Sky's
Deepest freeze
Where infinity
Grapples with
Eternity
Where only
The comets
Before us
Dared encroach
Where even
Now
The atoms
Of our
Ancestors
Stream past
At light's
Speed
Returned again
To the
Mists
Of the
Womb
Free
At last
From the
Tortures
Of time
N
"Of The Sphere"
The world speaks to usBe it in mighty stocatto _
A thunderstorm's fury
Or as a chorus of birds
Home at last
From the air
The chant
Of a brook
Over stones
An audience of leaves
Struck by the bluster
Of summer late _ giving thanks
Warm and breezes gentle
Carry the distant moans
Of a locomotive's passing
Angry surf visits the hapless shore
Exposing whited knuckle of curled fists
She pounds relentless _ ad infinitum
Rhythms intact; the symphony plays
As the composer intended
A jewel of sound in the vacuum of dark
All is in order; save the Moon
Earth's cold unexpected companion
Showing but one circumspect face
Afraid to turn a blind eye
As gravity enshrines her
In a frigid tryst
Only angels fallen
Witness this black mazurka
Choose not to speak of it
In the end
We dance
Alone
8/23/98/Ellis
"Day for Night"
The hues of a vanishing sun
Caress my soul
In Her fading embrace
Cloaks me in an ebony shroud
Free from the blinding glow
Of Sol's all-seeing eye
It is an illusion of course
A shadow-wall
Behind which I seek freedom
To hide (unseen)
To think (aloud)
To write (at my will)
Only in those depths
Does lightning flash her truth
Glorious and fleeting
Only that firmament betrays
The arrival of meteoric
Visitors
And within this pitch alone
Can we witness the beauty
Of a comet's passing
Against that veiled curtain
Fireworks reveal their true
And spectacular forms
For what is day
But a mere prelude
To the Great Show?
Without the dark there are no stars
And without stars to wish upon~
We are lost
10/7/98Ellis
"A Writer's Lament"
ideas fly, left and north
on scraps leftover,
whatever they're worth.
just where did i put them?
and what do they mean?
have you seen my pen?
enigmas in passing
are etched on pulp,
so keep us guessing.
falling into line upon line,
when the mood strikes.
then; and only then.
rhyme and meter
tossed aside
because i say so.
the clock is late,
the sky most dark,
and stars vibrate.
a dim haze.
so i write;
because that's all i have;
all i'll ever be.
there is no better way
to express and expose
what i am.
call it what you must:
midnite rant,
or muse gone mad.
thus;
in a world that makes
no sense whatever,
we are the few who seek
order.
this is the best
a lonely scribe can muster;
can master.
listen.
listen hard;
you have my promise:
you'll hear nothing.
"GROUND ZERO"
Some fantastic relation
Most uncommon in size
Holds the whole mess together
Good lord knows that it tries
Have you looked around lately?
Can I ask what you saw?
Did this world treat you kindly?
Was the deal pretty raw?
There are things that I've noted
Now just what were their names?
One's a great ball and glowing
Stressing gravity's chains
So they tug one another
Interact lightning fast
Me?
I'm running for cover~
Get ahead of the blast
12/2/98Ellis
"Star-Crossed"
I peered upon
The deepest dark,
And nothing's
What I saw.
Then struggle 'gainst
Full rising tide
And drowning's
What I draw.
In hollows of
A 'Big Bang' stew.
Expanding,
Speed of time.
We ran afoul,
Misunderstood;
Ridiculous:
Sublime.
A priori
Circumvents,
All efforts
To succeed.
They know not
What they do
O' Lord~
I hope
Yet still I bleed.
9/6/99Ellis
Comet Hyutake
"WANDERING DINOSAUR"
A rogue
A colossus
Biology run rampant
This beast from ages past
Together with his
brethren
Have known no equals
In all of time
The names imparted them
Equally magnificent
Brontosaurus
Stegosaurus
Tyrannosaurus Rex
King
Kings indeed
Each and all of them
They ruled this Earth
Blotting out the very
Sun and sky
With their presence
The ground shook a mighty quake
As mountains on parade
Roamed without aim
Seeking only greener pastures
Then Archaeopteryx
The genesis of flight
An evolution shared later
Much later~
By man
150 million years
Of absolute dominion
Then they vanished
And with the passing aeons
Reduced to a display
At a city museum
Reduced.
No.
Remarkable how proud they still are
Bereft of flesh and muscle
Still majestic
Still awesome
Still the greatest creatures
That ever wandered
may/78/ellis
"...and the full moon rises..."
This Universe-Machine grinds in aimless tumble
To the music of a drummer long departed.
His rhythms passed on to successive generations,
In hope they might learn the dance of the planets.
Sadly they have not.
We have managed only to run aground
In the wake of a passing ship.
Tangled helplessly amid the hopes of an
Even-tempered scale,
We are deafened by the atonal cries
Of the survivors.
And as for the progenitor of the species:
Listening; helpless.
He rests wearily on the precipice of time.
Head buried in His great hands He weeps.
It is a mournful thunder.
His tears cover the great plains
In a shower of sparks as has never been
Witnessed by humanity.
Only sheer momentum carries the Machine now.
It turns in spite of itself;
In spite of our place in it.
We are the ungrateful inheritors of this miracle.
The price of our apathy is lamentation.
An ill-wind strikes the leaves of the last dying tree.
The music it creates is a dirge.
Rows of light beyond the ridge are torches.
The last light of man shall be his first.
He did not understand.
He did not understand at all.
It was a gift.
Given freely and in good faith.
But the children of the stars
Took matters into their own unskilled hands
And botched the job wholesale.
We did not understand the totality of our existence.
Bad enough we were geocentric in our thinking;
It was egocentricity that hastened the demise.
"I am all there is"
Such nonsense.
All things were possible.
The Universe was ours.
Infinite riches lain bare for the taking.
We didn't even come close to exploring the potential.
It was only yesterday it seems when the skies cleared
To reveal a horizon to forever.
But fighting was more important;
Winning a parcel of land and hating those we drove from it
Was more important than inheriting infinity.
In the end we lived for nothing.
The efforts to guide us have all been in vain.
And our children cry.
Our children should not cry.
They should want for nothing in a universe as grand as this.
But we have left them alone and frightened.
All they can do now is wait;
For someone or something to deliver them from the maelstrom.
We should be ashamed.
The dreams are all broken and lain to waste.
Having surrendered to our selfish nature and stupidity afterall.
We should be most ashamed.
The demise is inevitable as it is imminent.
The sun sets and the full moon rises;
No one to see it.
Or to be amazed ----
R. Ellis writing as Nigel Thesis.
"Flowers"
I stood in reverent silence
Under the oasis that is
A pure onyx sky
As a thought took root
In my roiling mind
And began to flower
How many other
Lonely souls,
Might have stared back?
Through this mirror,
Dark as it is,
Ignored and forgotten;
As thoughts took root
In their distant minds,
And flowered?
How many ___
How many ___
I cannot imagine
When it began to rain
The 'generals' in the park
Did not abandon their troops.
They simply played.....faster.
<
The finest kind
It hooked so clean
Was cut sublime
And on that shrine
Dividing mine
I raced unseen
So moved benign
Streaming tattered
Folded stars
Off'd a view
Though scimitars
Nearing
Rainbow-bullet's flight
I laughed at time
Snared comets right
The galaxies
Undone by fleet
Served distant suns
In grand retreat
Giant clusters
Shrank to dust
I thought I might
It seemed I must
Headlong challenge
Dipped in dark
No view tomorrow
Quirk and quark
Journey's end
A fast surprise
The pale blue dot
Had met mine eyes
Home of course
Einstein was right:
7/10/98Ellis
The stars flicker
Like some hundred billion candles
In the gale
Of their own solar winds
The rules of Gravity
Are obeyed with a flawless
Precision
Giving a shape to time
Great Circles
Fall back upon themselves
In relentless arcs
As finale
Dissolves to overture
The captive planets
Swing clockwork-like
Trapped on an invisible plane
In humbled audience
To their hydrogen master
Then appears a Great Comet
Some enigmatic Mistress-Bride
Teasing her mentor
With a vacuous train
As lovely as her stay is brief
And a form as empty
As her promises of love
~I fear that you've misunderstood,
I never meant to stay.~
This seems to me in passing
Precisely what she'd say
She seeks a stage
And curtain calls
Set years of light away
So passes through the cosmos
Spinning dreams at every port
We thought she'd long be with us
Yet in truth t'was only sport
But how spectacular the apparition
As she pirouhettes
Amid the stars that flicker
Some hundred billion candles
In the gale
Of their own
Solar winds
Love is the child
Of delicate wants
Passive in passion
She uncertain, flaunts
Seductive, alluring
She tempts as she taunts
A masterful mistress
A framework that haunts
You hurt me in spite of
The love that I gave
And I can't imagine why
Misguided priorities
Lighted my way
False-colored signposts
The promise of day
The dream came up empty
The sky ashen gray
No flowers can grow
In the heat of the fray
You left me in spite of
The hours that I prayed
So I can't imagine why
What have you learned
In the fields and the flocks?
Tie not the hands back
Keep winding the clocks
No end of the rainbow
No ship at the docks
Stop looking for diamonds
In a landscape of rocks
You're happy in spite of
The plans that we made
But I can't imagine why
Heartstrings are highways
The road of the knave
From the end of the hallway
To the foot of the grave
Who'll sit beside me
And share in my laugh?
Ponder these musings,
Or my epitaph?
Jan/86/Ellis
This all related universe,
Great numbers stand unchanged.
Expands, contracts
Ad infinite;
Its curving mass estranged.
The roiling theories intersect
They seek to fine explain;
But stand amiss
'Mid ancient mists:
Impossible's refrain.
We're perched on nature's
Colored time ~
She shows save what she dares.
All efforts to identify,
Restrained; contained; ensnared.
This universe is cast in stone,
Determined and unkind.
Old clocks that set
The whole thing right
Are soon to all unwind.
Hence battles indescriminate,
A waste of time untold.
Earth's biped monkey idiot's
The black sheep
In its fold.
8-14-11 RE.
I'm seeing things
Less clearly
Expectation
Bought and sold
Now my life is over
Nearly...
As I'm growing
Far too old
A hollow soul
That drifts alone
A clock
With time to spare
A heart that beats
A heavy stone
A brain
That does not care
Watch another moonrise
Catch another landslide
Bang
Another sun dies
Nothing here
But black skies
85/Ellis
it is when the pitch of night
turns to the blinding warmth of dawn
it is when deep sorrow
turns to unbridled joy
when the aged and worn
re-discover their youth
when parted lovers
find each other's arms
and remember their
warm passions
long-forgotten,
or so it seemed
when a dark and bitter winter
turns to spring,
and in that melting dew
eager stems reach; to heaven
when nothing is impossible
no height too grand for scaling
no river's rush too great,
no world too distant for taking
these are the things that await
these are the things we'll meet
hold onto forever; whatever her shape
these are the days worth living for
great things
are approaching at speed
of this
I am certain
Jan/22/98/Ellis
we seek an ordered
universe
it seems the earth
went ~flat~
as slide rule honed
equations cry
for a second turn
at bat
an aeons-worth
of fires fade
we didn't
stand a chance
this solar-system
"so-long" means
biped just bought
the ranch
the "steady state"
in disrepair
subatoms
come unglued
the highest court
is in recess
our case
well past review
in truth
it's all a crapshoot
random chance
to nth degree
the scales were tipped
by loaded odds
the ride alone
was free
planet Man
has ceased its whirl
in brief
it is no more
Prime Mover
seeks diversion
as His apes
a crashing bore
I've just the time
to write myself
it'll only
take a week
this supercluster
solar star's
a cosmologic
freak
our seeds were strewn
on solar flare
an ill-wind
just the same
from Genesis
to genocide
a sad tune
in refrain
upright Man
no fixed address
his ~flat~
reduced to shards
so hold his calls
and put his mail
on a steamer
to the stars
And the Moon ~
Consort to both.
Oblique view of Mare Imbrium and Copernicus Crater from Apollo 17
I thought of a great choir
Gathered on a hill
Voices raised in praise.
So wonderous was their song
That all had come to see,
To hear better, this awesome spectacle.
And I thought too that perhaps
The eminent composers of our time
Were also in attendance.
Wagner impressed;
Bach overjoyed;
Beethoven; nodding approval.
In its glory that hill
Had become the center
Of this universe.
The sound now so glorious; swelling
It reached even the most
Distant of stars
Until even the gods themselves became aware
Observing these odd creatures; with a curiosity
Which bordered envy.
Not fully undestanding
How such a flawed race
Could generate such bold themes.
How extraordinary:
It filled the heavens
As light filling the mind.
The foundations of a bridge
To a new reality
Were lain.
How wonderful
apr/85/Ellis
VOYAGER I
Call it paradise;
And explore.
