The Scarab Unafraid of Shit

Entomb me with your burying gaze,

your mudslinging ways,

these claws were meant to dig. 

But I will be extremely big

about the pyramid of shit

when you had me in it. 

Should being brought low make me small?

Honestly? No, not at all.  

A scarab beetle cleans and renews

in the dung and death that ensues

all throughout its constructive life.

And me--I thrive on strife. 

Because striving is thriving and tills the soil

that preserves my entire mortal coil. 

Go on and criticize me,

you nourish and moisturize me. 

And I will come up glowing. 

So step back or start knowing. 

Dreamtime

 I dreamt of the ancestors,

my ancestors,

even the ones I didn't know. 

I have done that, sometimes.

But it makes me wonder

because it would--

is this good? 

Because it feels like they

were welcoming me

to that place that we

eventually see

which right this minute shouldn't be

that close for me.

But when I look at this life

and all its attendant harms

a part of me was ready to 

rest in those arms. 

But maybe they were just checking in. 

Because I'm not ready for checking out. 

They are staying with me, though.

No doubt.

The Caged

 What is a bird?

The captive child asked

never having seen the sun,

let alone a creature taking wing

free on the wind,

If a pile of shoes could not

throw you,

nor the device where men

were pressed flat,

the vintage of their arteries

running in grooves on the floor--

let that question haunt you:

"What is a bird?"

And how would you explain

the thousand and one things

he'd never seen in the world,

let alone the things

he had?

A Quickie

 You apologize to the open drawer

you gracelessly hip-checked

and it mutely 

holds no malice.

We anthropomorphize 

haphazardly

with respects to the world

around us--

although we forget to

respect 

other people.

Promises

 Locally observed FTL:

information leaping between synapses

like ingenious fire:

lightning captured in a jar of bone. 

Promises are bestowed on this

canopic shell housing

the one organ the ancients

simply threw away.

Mens sana in corpore sano.

Lift with the mind and the muscle,

flexing youth--

tempting fate.

O mens!

O corpore!

The palace of the mind is a house of cards

atop a badly stacked pile

of chips, and every move

is a gamble 

The problem of physics defies

debugging, and you can't 

fix it with a code

any more than you

can fix mortality

with a gun.

Danse Macabre

 flesh marionettes,

unseen strings;

they jerk smiling

but solemn--

slowly,

ritually.

the endzone twerk

and the graveyard stomp

colliding.

dance for the "cleansing fire".

dance for the plague victims,

dance for the war to be.

dance your

last victory;

but make it seem carefree.

surrender thought and

identity. 

emulate the joker

in his house of cards

and let the music

play.

Storm Warning

 I didn't inquire about

the visible scars

of the anxieties that

sent her from

pillar to post

in the heightened pitch

of a drizzle.

Those things were her 

business and

I tended to mine.

It was the least

and the most 

that I could do.

Small Thanks

 There is a blessing for this place

we are calling the land of the free;

the land of the pilgrims' pride,

and their perilous journey at sea--

but some folks; do vary

on what they mean by "free"

and still others do vary

on what they mean by "we". 

My wish for this place

is that, as both ideas

have a wide definition for me--

and so mote it be,

for thee.

Awake

 Gnarled and knotty

thoughts branching

across a canopy of the night mind,

rhizomes of

worrying tendrils

 shooting

through the gut;

the mind is surgingly fertile

when all I want

is rest and yet 

here it grows,

new foliage at every

"if" and "and"

and "but."

Nature isn't Fooled

 The grasses still whisper among themselves

the long ago joke--

"Asses' ears! He fears they will know! 

He covers his head so they won't show!"

Crows wink and poke

their beaks in the direction

of the naked emperor and his

half-erection, 

in fraudulent imagined finery.

Mice have witnessed a wealthy man

shitting gold bricks

into a shiny gold can. 

And the trees can't help themselves but bray

in their branches when the winds of change 

do sway, and some high fellow

thinking himself quite tall,

though but a sapling,

has a great fall. 

Over the millennia that man 

has thought he ruled;

as a cat can look at a king,

and a cockroach might 

survive anything--

nature isn't fooled. 

And who knows but some virus, some bacillus, 

a mere bee-sting

can undo the wildest fortune 

and change everything? 

Vision

 The team wants 

Plague at the Ministry of Health and 

Death at the head of the 

Ministry of War, 

and they have a plan for War but call it "Peace"

and Famine is the economy 

they've planned for. 

As if being dictated to from some

ancient book both allegorical 

and with a meaning obscure,

and decided these were blueprints

for an endgame of

forevermore. 

They are tempting the hand of 

the one they believe in, deceiving

and calling it the way--

a little game for little boys 

in grown spiritual dress-up

LARPing prophecy. 

I can't forgive them for what they are doing.

I think they deserve eternal screwing. 

And maybe that is not poetic, 

by my noetic self.

But I call them pathetic.

Judgment calls for us all someday--

not one day--

and no prince of this earth, no more than any dog

will fail to have his. 

And you will get well and truly done as you did. 

Because the blood of Abel 

cried out, 

and that was no anomaly.

And the little gray cells of time

are a great detective. 

And something in mankind is defective--

But we aren't all burning for it. 

Damnit. 

Nor yearning for it--

so can it. 

Boys in the Woods

 How they got out there

I do not know;

their moms are in the village though,

I think they got preoccupied

and never noticed that 

they'd strayed.

They are nearly man-sized now

you see.

Brought up in part on bad tv,

and various weird big brothers

of the digital age. 

Someone should have been afraid.

What happens when 

any young man is 

raised by half-wit Peter Pans

but have to live in the real world? 

There is a terrible disconnect

where the real and the fake

don't intersect--

they know it's wrong,

but don't know who to blame.

More's the shame--

do we?

Gather your flowers

 Take your sense of growing terror,

pluck up the blooms of anger,

steep them in boiling water

and throw in a dose of salt.

Soon the jar develops a mother;

continue to feed it,

with the flowers of your rage. 

Bubbles will appear. 

At first a few, then a lot. 

Nurture the tulpa 

as it solidifies, 

a breathing creature made of 

your castoff feeling and

teach it well as you 

let it age. 

Let it love you, and you

love it too. As you were meant to do. 

Your mirror-daughter wants to be good,

and was strengthened by your 

sweat and tears and blood. 

Gather her, your child of flowers

to your heart--

then let her go. 

You don't know what she

might do next,

but you do know 

The Maenads (Updated from the Philadelphians)

 The god was not respected

in the place of his beginning

and they that knew him there said

"Show us your miracles!"

And after the manner of Heracles

the get of Zeus Pater rolled up

his sleeves, and 

instead of making like a tree that leaves?

No. He gets with the hero cycle

his wonders to perform. 

Which was outside of the norm 

So Pentheus who was not all that,

talked out of his hat being a cousin

and thought it cute to 

troll him, rolling the dozens. 

His mom being Dionysus' auntie.

The nephew of Agave (the Padrona of Tequila) and  

the son of Semele, a side piece who was burned, 

the godlet came from his father's janky leg

and didn't come to fuck with these 

fools. He brought his wine to

the thirsty women of a dry world,

and once whetted, the girls

took the entire town down. 

And that No-Pentheus, he was tore up, 

from the floor up. Butchered as if for the grill,

he got served while Dionysus sauntered 

in his furs, surrounded by jealous curs, 

and the Maenads flowered

by the grapes empowered. 

And that is the way of the world. 

Hunters

 They loaded up the trucks and

had their weapons ready

(they thought)

but misinterpreted the prey.

They were wrong about their weapons, too;

the ammunition,

faultily provisioned.

Squibs, blanks--and the 

spoor

was that of a constipated

predator. 

When brought to bay

(as they say)

the hunted were ready

to rip.

To claw.

To bite. 

The hunters expected a hunt,

not a fight. 

Could this be some analogy?

Yeah,

I guess it might. 

Maudlin

 I have seen her in the square,

gaunt, a mendicant, spare,

begging those with eyes to see

her devotion to her mendacity.

She will call herself a victim

while being a bully in your face--

plying the oldest trade in town

with her soul an empty space.

She's a creature marking off its turf,

pissing in public on the dirty earth.

Transformations

 If your skin sits ill on your shoulders

from prying eyes and 

burning words

cast it off. 

What is underneath is

more than they

can bear--

don't add another layer.

Not a pink hat

a t-shirt

a bracelet. 

What you use to signify 

is too abstract,

a mask--

reify. Render yourself

material and place your staff

deep in the roots of the world. 

You too are bloody red in tooth

and claw--

start remembering

what these things were for. 

Nine Tails

 I am nine tails old now,

and I change like the white water.

I ate my birth year for good luck 

and am my own daughter. 

Sometimes when I drink you

can see my teeth come out--

just a little sharper, 

causing just a little doubt. 

Contrary to myth no femme fatale--

not at all, not at all. 

But things I touch may fall

as if bewitched. 

(Or as if pitched.)

Nine tails old is a thousand tales

in the making. 

Things I might say would leave you shaking

Mostly because they are true. 

Also because I am telling them to you. 

And there's no telling what

I might do. 

The Ask

 They came to march to assault your eyes

with that same old symbol--

both a cross, and not. 

They walk the streets bare headed now--

openly now to defy

the safety and morality you've still got. 

Their flag you know, and their minds

would not surprise you

with new and inviting temptations.

We've heard these words and know

their kind--they represent

societal desecration. 

So here's the deal, stand fast

fill the street. The ask is that they do not meet

with frightened eyes but defiance,

Their reliance is on fear and they 

will take it and feed--

the task is to say no to fear.

The next course is blood. 

Will you refuse to bleed? 

Roiled

 The war in you demands more of you;

the resources you have, and don't.

What more do you want from yourself--

but something inside just...won't? 

You see two paths in a wood

and both are a "wouldn't".

You know right from wrong,

and everything is a "shouldn't". 

There has to be a reality 

beyond just "to be or not to be." 

Are we doing this right?

Living deliciously?

Or doing it with spite--

maliciously? 

Too many people have too long been spoiled.

They can't find themselves until they are roiled. 

O cursed fate--

by then, isn't it too late?

Crying Wolf

 There are those who live a life

that never begs them for the proof,

they cry and cry for their problems

but they have to blame the wolf. 

What if the wolf got civilized

and came to your door

a service processing animal--

the kind you couldn't ignore?

What if he took on a whole

new set of clothes?

Learned to smile without showing 

teeth in rows? 

Unless he wanted to? 

What would you do?

If he settled with his pack 

and everyone had his back and you

were still just a little rabbit who

ran and ran when he frightened you?

Maybe make yourself a loup-garou.

Go and be the wolf yourself

instead of your crying. 

Yeah. You. 

What They are Made of

 They say the gods have feet of clay,

I wouldn't let them on my freshly mopped floor.

I think our leaders are made of wax;

they don't stand up to the heat anymore.

Icarus flew too close to the sun,

before his wings fell quite to pieces.

Yet I have seen the earthbound fall apart

and be remade like the ship of Theseus.--

molded to any shape you please,

a dripping face, weak at the knees.

To Failure

 Lift this

or push this

incredible weight

and take joy in it.

We imagine you happy

to go over this old mountainous

ground again.

Up we go,

smile and be happy.

our purpose is here, and gravity is

a constant and

the task is always bigger than

your numb hands

can still get a grip on.

And in the dark of everything

that small voice inside you says--

Ler's roll!

And the weight floats like a helium balloon,

and you can run like a child. 

Honor

Somewhere it will start again. 

The problem, the blessing, the curse

of man

everywhere and everywhen,

with fidelity to stubbornness

and hardly a plan,

no poor idea left unturned

no criticism left

unearned,

all error and conflicts

to be picked over

as if new

though at the site of

old scars--

we will find new wars.

Or old ones.

And we will start again

and ever with such women,

ever with such men,

the backbone,

soft tissue and heart

that in their valor possess the art

of finding courage in terror,

create order from error

and try to save the day

if they cannot

save this human race.

Observing a Red Shift

 There are changes and then there are changes

in the effect of our chosen poles

as we have pulled away

and the sway of the constants have

become an equinox processing

out of time--

o cursed spite. Some

out of the box logic

muscles in to set things

orderly

but not right. 

To be is inevitable, to act

a tactical flex of volition in 

a potential less pre-determined world?

I am tired of mourning

a future I did not invent

nor had the power to circumvent, a course 

still unborn yet believed

conceived under an ill-fated star.

Perhaps we are better than

we think we are

not bodies in some static field 

but inertial forces that will not yield

to a temporary flux. 

Me and Isaac and Eve splitting an apple

while others are splitting atoms and hairs. 

I feel like Schrodinger's fox

I care and I don't care--

running the feline software problem on

loyal canine

hardware. 

Dead Reckoning

 To understand the movement

of anything

you must have some sense

if what is fixed--

we lost this quality somewhere.

We are moving quickly 

in a complicated world,

everyone relative to some

memory or maxim

grasping at a unified reality,

but now what we know together

or what we knew? 

These are strangely distorted,

and some brand-new fixed points

are nothing that ever were

and people flock to a transient glow

in a light-soaked blur

like moths to 

a porch light or

a bug zapper and 

mistaken sights that equal doom. 

Eye of the Beholder

 Now that I am older

I know more and know

that I know less than

I thought I did--

knowledge in the eye

of the beholder reckons

with my awkward sight.

My lenses curve and

my mind flotsams and jetsams

driftwood memories of things

eroded by time

or by fashion outmoded

to the surface in answer

to questions I only

have begun to ask

as if I've always been working

 at the task.

I have not the confidence of 

a callow youth to say

I know for sure all that I know

nor even the sense to go with the flow. 

I am eddying in

the current of time but have 

picked up some things;

I know it's 

only what my current brings. 

There are other depths to be explored

beyond what I have known

I'm sure. 

Still with this eye

I would like 

to see more. 

You Wouldn't Believe

 They can tell you the tale

of Priam's daughter, but 

no one asked if she saw further

with her damned eyes,

doomed and doom-saying

with her words treated

as an ass' braying.

If she wrote, it was on gossamer

even if it meant the world to her;

on water, colors of the paint brush

blur, and 

the point becomes a non sequitur. 

Nostradamus gets good credit for

things only hinted at

in metaphor,

yet she was just a woman talking

as it were.

You know, as they are wont to do,

and sometimes what they say comes true. 

I do not know if it was a curse

that she was disbelieved 

or worse, that listeners are deceived 

of the course

of the story when they have

misperceived the source. 

Stars

 It is dark and I'm seeing stars--

of course I am!

I've been hit in the face,

my jaw awry and the taste

of blood in my mouth,

but when things go south

crouch low,

and aim for the middle,

then straight the fuck up.

The only way out

is through and fast,

and that's really all

I know.

Democracy is a Verb

 I remember hearing "God is a verb" and 

it paused me--doing, being. 

Righteousness is acts,

and faith without works is dead. 

"You will know them

by their fruits"--

some exceptional, without blemish,

beautiful to the eye

and honey on the tongue. 

We can see a whited sepulcher

and know what lies therein,

because you know a grave from a buffet. 

Anyway--

the heart of democracy is a verb--

to be aware and free.

We vote with our hearts

our hands, and our feet. 

It is a doing. And the work

must always be done,

or what gets done is

WE. 

The Bad Neighbor

 Sirens in the distance cut through the peace;

there's an arsonist in the neighborhood

and he's known to the police.

They have been trying to pretend

it isn't him, though, but 

it's not really a secret.

Of course, they know.

He even has a fan club (can you believe!?);

they send him matches and gasoline.

It's because he "hits the right houses"

they say--if you know what that means.

People have lost their lives 

and families have been divided.

It's very hard to swallow 

the alibis provided

when the arsonist has mentioned names

shortly before the flames.

It isn't very pleasant

and I don't think it's good

for us to have an arsonist

living in the neighborhood.

Not Here for Seconds

 The rough beast slouches

then the rough beast sways.

(He is looking very rough these days.)

Tottering on his padded heels,

would you imagine that he feels

at this moment loved and trusted

while his face seems

thoroughly rusted?

Do they say when he is now talking

about a golfer's pink putter:

"At least he doesn't stutter?"

Or when he obscenely molests

a poorly-adjusted mic,

will they call him a playful, little tyke?

I will remember when music had charms

to sway a wounded beast--at least

those around him thought so

and so played titanically on.

One day the music will play him off,

and we will be relieved 

that he is gone.

So I hear--

 The aliens don't want to visit us,

but Tucker has been visited by an incubus.

Or so I infer.

It scratched him in his bed on his back

in a most horri.ble attack

but mostly wanted to talk

all things being what they were.

(Alex Jones will vouch for this--

we are living in spooky times.

Well, He would say that--so back to the rime--)

The two conversed without a filter

until the demon, feeling off-kilter

excused herself in a manner abrupt--

the man had nothing left to corrupt.

We have to ask if we've lost all sense

to buy such a tale with no evidence.

But to give it up for the unlikely host

whether ghosted by a demon

or bedeviled by a ghost--

he really knows his audience.

The Blocks

 They tell you things

to ramp you up

until you have found yourself

on blocks,

Your wheels are left spinning

but you

have lost all contact with 

the road.

And what you have left

is stripped for parts.

There is nothing to do

but be very, very

aware.

Shed

I have been clawing myself 

open

hoping something will change

underneath this 

pale human skin

to find the natural animal within.

And it is not a rabbit or a doe. 

Great Disney set-up, though. 

When I found her,

barking, chicken stealing and

skylarking,

I found my name.

I understood what strangely happened here

a wild adaptable canid

loyal as a tick, 

owning your trash, 

looking for a life

amid constant change. 

And I know many things

that steal away from the one big thing you

think you know.

I shed the self that was 

only human

to learn to grow. 

And my bark

is like the cackle of a witch. 

You can never see through me

because every day there is a new me,

because I remember your past

so hard I never remember mine.

And I feel fine. 

I shed my human skin,

and the wisdom

within falls out. 

I am here for your doubt

and your remembrance. 

Let's dance

in the light of a harvest moon,

and gather our thoughts together

and tell them

so cleverly

that we think they came from ancient history and not

just you and me. 

 

Father Moloch

 They in their purple and their crimson

faces painted like a mural in a brothel,

their tired hair piled high and

hands in an attitude of most 

Holy Sacred Prayer did

take their children

to the temple of their fathers

and their fathers' fathers, 

there to be fed to the brazen beast

as was the custom

and their great privilege.

And you could not say them wrong

for they would have no ears to hear it

nor did they have eyes to see

their babies' faces

as the priests took their spotless virgin

offerings--and no god intervened.

Gathered and Checked

 If you go out not knowing

when to be checked

the world will see you wrecked

because you sway out there

not with a chip on your shoulder

but all made up of chips--

stacks to gamble for, stacks to bargain with,

and this life will just

chip, chip, chip away.

Your most loving friends will

gather you up in their loving arms,

but O! Up in arms you will 

surely be gathered by them, too.

Get your chips on the table--

you may be gambling with the world

but you can still enjoy the game

depending upon who you play with

and if you know when not to play.

Scrolls

If you unwrap these

charred skins

depicting a scene of war

you would read of

a world: a universe

of trapped and 

channeled woe, a tale of

persecution

for the wrongs of others

at last

with nowhere left

to go,

And you might think

them ancient,

the scarred remains of

history's flow.

But they breathed life

the same as ours

only sadder

but a little while 

ago.

 

This Butcher Low-Fallen

 His landing was hard 

they said, euphemistically 

in a place where words 

are made to hide truths,

not to reveal them,

and he was 

brought down

as his prized meats 

were still hanging--

because he was a butcher, caught

in the blades of history

sliced for others 

to dine on as he once

ate and ate and ate.

Who is served by this?

Who knows? Just

get ready with your plate. 

Afraid New World

 There was no room for emergency

in the emergency room

so she settled into her car

as life emerged from her,

and then life left

her infant, too.

What were the doctors supposed to do?

If you said first, no harm

then no harm done,

but that math isn't fooling

anyone. It's attention diverted

from the harm of inaction

when fear has gained traction

and pro-life is merely

forced birth,

and such births will happen anyhow

and that the baby died doesn't matter

to the screamers now-

having happened in a car

not a clinic.

Call me a cynic, but if you call this 

an act of God, or

an act of fate,

I would say no--it was the state

that barred the door

that tied the hands

that choked the heart

that buried the child, 

all mummified in red tape. 

Tape as red as blood. 

The Piece of Work

 There he shrugged 

boasting of his mission

while a great task lay before

the staring eyes of the world. 

Plucked from his river

bed soft as a baby otter

he sees the injustice of the world

and having taken his place

in the house of Pharoah

his mind too narrow

to do more than snap,

he isn't going to do crap

to remind of us of

his imagined avatar

but to be sitting in a stalled car

overseeing an exodus.

To Those in the Stands

 You who sit by the fragrant smoke, 

you, punters, never having carried a spear, 

hear me in this arena, for I speak

of the man who has fought here

and never left.

Shame on us if

having placed a mantle of duty

upon old shoulders, 'tis we

who wince at the weight 

and mock his white hairs.

You complain you are in

the shade of a colossus

from under this banner,

as he stands in the heat.

Were we ready to shoulder this burden

as if young Atlas ourselves?

Who with such speed and certainty

came to stand in this gap? 

(Who are these, the 

grasshopper champions who wake

having slumbered so long

and can do nothing but spit?)

Our generation has shrugged at

the heft of the world--

who would now leave it

to these idle hands? 

To your feet! 

A Herculean task awaits--

stables are in need of clearing 

and hydra-headed woes 

have need of your torch. 

Ignis Fatuus

 Would I be taken to task

if I were to ask

if an arsonist would be shamed

by a candle's brief flame? 

In a roaring bonfire, 

what is another match?

The catch is that

the great act of 

self-sacrifice is the 

pyre of future action,

the dwindling of choices

to one final

kindling of despair, 

to fare with the struggle

no more.

I do not think this is what

the great gift of our lives 

was for. 

It is not complicity to merely breathe

in a world of ashes,

and although I may grieve 

(in my own way)

I would not make an ash of myself. 

Burn not without, but within,

with motive pure,

go on with your life and yet fight.

Endure. 

On the Wing

 In our beaks

the taste of it--

the thought that

the cage around us would

melt away,

the breeze beckons,

and then?

That wild, vital thing

inside would 

take over

and we would be

alright.

Maybe not for a long time,

but a good time.

Masquerade

 I have a persona.

You see this me I have to be

the real me isn't even known

to me. I haven't been that me

since I was maybe three. 

I made a me subliminally

and you would get my jokes

folks if you watched me doing this

can I can I think I can dance 

throughout 50 or so years of knowing

I don't think like you all do. 

But I make like I do because 

I have to. And it's OK.

I don't know how any of you 

are doing this on the real anyway. 

I don't think you don't do a mask 

yourself, I just suppose

you don't know the mask you wear 

when it's under your own nose. 

The Chase

 It's time for this ritual again

as the quarry has appeared,

moving out in the rough like

a jewel--I have seen them

like pure white elk or

perfect red heifers or

an ebony doe, streaking

free and unminded

and then brought down

by a thousand arrows:

or at least, by Heaven! 

the men will try.

Every one of them an attempted sacrifice

to the withered limb of a 

bitter little god with a face

like a dried-out apple.

Powerful witches who had to be

stopped, lest their magic shrink men

to the size they want women to be.

The hunters shout after them: "Medusas! Jezebels!"

as they watch the desired prey,

uncovered hair waving like

tired snakes threatening to snatch

these sorry heroes like

fish in a net. They cry like dogs, 

sent raving mad after a 

flaming brush disappearing into a field--

until the grass itself is set afire

with her brilliance.

They could never hold what they intend to catch;

but they would see it destroyed.

Peril

 Underneath the cradle,

in the nursery

someone had placed a trapdoor--

whoever would have

put it there?

There, where the innocent

lay sleeping, over

the dark tunnel--twisting dark spaces

filled with deadly hardware?

It is both a terrible metaphor

and not.

I can't even tell you where the child 

is now. Fallen

like a leaf from

a storm-tossed

bough.

Herstory Repeating

 Brain warms, see? Angry, arrabiata, constantly

spicy, talking to myself and many, many

inanimate things that don't

PICK THEMSELVES UP AROUND HERE!

Cravings, ravings, maybe a little snack would

help? Thirsty, snapping, napping, and sweating,

getting older is not a joke.

Thickening, sickening, 

high volume and low vibrational

at the same time? The whole deal

is split mind and too many places

for the pieces to go, and I don't know.

Maybe I will have a snack

and a cold coffee. And sit wondering why

my skin got so dry and how alien

it feels to be me, still being me.

The Bomb Threat

 The state police outside the building

in the morning gave me

a mild touch of alarm,

but so what? 

Their presence was neutral

and not one of harm.

The email that told us

to "shelter in place"

was so calmly, thoughtfully

written as if to give space

to the possibility of

calamity. It was

necessary, but

not to create panic because

in reality,

such threats are commonplace,

and mostly bullshit.

If they really intended it--

would they even make

a threat? 

Living in interesting times. 

Everything is a 

long risk bet.