The earth’s a complex, integrated whole,
each part entwining in a common waltz.
And in such systems backups have a goal—
“Enable full recovery from faults.”
When chestnuts died, the birds found other homes.
When pigeons died, raccoons found other eggs.
Extinction’s cold, destabilizing foams
cannot collapse a house with many legs.
But pavement is a desert, hard and dead;
suburban lawns are barren for a bear.
A farmer’s field will bring the wheat to head,
but other creatures only perish there.
We celebrate our tower growing tall,
but all the while we undermine its wall.
Dopamine
Their eyes—intently luminous—reflect
kaleidoscopes of pixelated light.
Frenetic echoes afterward project
on shuttered eyelids, sparking in the night.
With urgent fingers, frantically they clutch
and click controllers, keyboards, screens and mice,
the never-satisfying fruit of much
rehearsal, constant thought, and streamed advice.
Their voices burst in shouts of rage or joy
at new achievements, leaderboard defeats,
each loot box, headshot, killstreak, skin, or toy;
the feedback loop continually repeats.
Their wallets, grades, and spouses know the score:
“I think I’ve got the time to play one more.”
My Father’s Epitaph
My father was a complicated man.
A surgeon, pilot, seminary grad,
he used the opportunities he had
to overcome the life where he began.
(Depression-era broken home; my gran
divorced his cheating, alcoholic dad).
Conversion, war, then Harvard, marriage glad,
five children—much he did in short a span.
But middle-age provoked a darker turn.
He left his wife though teaching Sunday school
(his father’s lessons he forgot to learn),
for years wrought pain, lascivious and cruel.
But grace abounded; guilt began to burn,
till Twilight Mercy Found a Grateful Fool.
Maker’s Lament
His fingers led the quill’s familiar dance,
ensnaring thoughts in sinuous lines of ink,
unwitting in his ancient scribal trance
that Gutenberg so soon would break the link.
Her fingers passed the shuttle through the warp,
transmuting garb of sheep to that of kings,
accustomed to the music of her harp,
unwary of the song an engine sings.
Their fingers summoned visions from the mind,
with brush, and stencil, pen, and Photoshop,
illusionists astonished now to find
an artificial artist heist their crop.
Of all creation, humans are the head;
but what remains when human art is dead?
A Bedtime Prayer
God, the time to sleep has come for me at last;
this day, though blest, has been a weary one.
Both pain and gain I had beneath the sun,
and now I close with thanks for what has passed:
You gave me breath to walk, and work, and sing.
On wicked words and deeds, please, mercy show.
You gave me light to see, and know, and go.
I wanted more; I could have had much less.
You gave me hope, enduring in distress;
above all things it kept me fighting sin.
You gave me love—of beauty, kith, and kin,
delights enkindling love of You, my King.
So many were your perfect gifts as through the day I pressed.
With gratitude I gently go most sweetly to my rest.
A Morning Prayer
God, your brilliance lit each photon that has shined.
You wove spacetime. You framed the human mind.
Your might assembled every quantum mote,
and heaped up stars like sand, and formed my throat.
And though you’ve bound the universe with death,
today again you’ve filled my lungs with breath.
So speaking now, I kneel as I rise.
I place my hope in you. You hold my fate.
The Bible says you’re holy, loving, wise;
Muhammad says you’re merciful and great.
But me, I’ve never seen you with my eyes;
I only know to cling to hope and wait.
So lowly, weak, uncertain, full of sin,
I’ll worship, serve, and sing as if you’ll come again.
Revalidation Exam: ENGL 725 – Victorian Novel
Note: In 2003 I started a PhD in English at the University of South Carolina. I never finished the dissertation. In 2012 I switched careers to IT, and eventually all my coursework expired. In 2020, after a job change brought us back to Columbia, I decided to try and finish. One of the first steps was revalidating all my old coursework. For one class, I had to write an essay. The essay prompt was defined by me in concert with the English faculty examiner. I submitted the finished essay this last weekend. (DL, Dec. 7, 2021)
Original Course Description:
Survey of the development of the novel form, with study of major and lesser-known figures, in relation to social change and publishing conditions; authors include Dickens, George Eliot, and Hardy.
Instructions:
Write an essay in response to the prompt below. Essay length is at the discretion of the student but may be considered by the reader as part of the evaluation. This is a take-home exam. Expectations in regards to proofreading and source citation may accordingly be high.
Movie Review: Dune
Note: This article was written for and first appeared on the Imperium News Network (INN), a news website dedicated to the space combat video game EVE Online. During the two years after I started contributing in the Spring of 2020, writing for INN was an enjoyable hobby that reminded me of writing for my college newspaper. During that time I wrote more than 40 articles, most covering various space battles and drama in the game. This article was one of the few not directly related to the game. I permanently quit playing EVE and contributing to INN in May, 2022. (DL, June 7, 2023).
I’ll begin with the TL;DR:
The movie Dune is one of the greatest novel adaptations I’ve ever seen and also a magnificent sci-fi epic in its own right. If you like EVE, you’ll probably love this movie. If you haven’t already, go see it in the theater, and soon.
What I Wanted in Dune
This first section is background on what I look for in movies. Skip to the next section if you want to get straight to Dune.
Continue readingThat World
Note: I wrote this very short story in a rush–a few hours in a single day. Vocal.media had a short-story challenge with a grand prize of $20,000. I figured ‘why not?’ and submitted this. The prompt was: “Write a short creative fiction piece, no longer than 2,000 words, about a post-apocalyptic dystopia. . . . The only requirement is that your story must include a heart-shaped locket.” (DL, Sept. 12, 2021)
“Careful, Nour,” he said to her as she picked her way along the beach. Eyes scanning the ground in front of her, she dutifully acknowledged her father’s warning. “Yes, Baba.”
The day was hot. High sun showered her head with heat, barely kept at bay by the bright hijab wrapped meticulously around her black hair. The light was dazzling off the white sand. She kept her gaze low, a shading hand at her brow to save herself a headache later. They didn’t have long before Dhuhr, the early midday prayer, and Baba was seldom late.
Continue readingIslamic Evidence of the Bible’s Corruption
Note: While living for two years in Saudi Arabia I made Muslim friends and as a result have developed Islamic connections on social media. One group I am a part of is devoted to interfaith dialog between Muslims and Christians. The majority of the members appear to be from the Middle East and Africa. In April, I posed a question to the group: “Muslim apologists frequently claim that the Bible has been corrupted from its original form. What specific evidence do you have of corruption? As someone who has spent more than a little time studying the textual history of the Bible, the New Testament in particular, I find the claim of corruption difficult to substantiate. Compared to all other ancient texts, the Biblical text is extremely well attested in the manuscript record.” The question led to hundreds of comments and counter comments from many members. Those comments I consolidated into a single list of twenty evidences. I then shared that list of twenty with the group and asked for validation, which I received from the Muslim members of the group. I present that list here without additional comment. I hope in the future to return to it and share further thoughts. (DL, Sept. 13, 2021)
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