The Fate of Things

Res ipsa loquitur . . .

Everything that could be created has.

No, that's wrong! There's an infinity of things,

They crowd me close, each wretched dingus

Wanting an owner and respect,

To last until it's good and wrecked.

And who can say when that might be?

Like us they love eternity,

Old, crippled things, so hard to see.

Discarding them you must play rough

And dig them under, like the tough

Who ploughs the dough that buys the stuff.

I do my best to ward them off

Or hurl them from the light of day

To the Golgotha called “away,"

For it's impossible to find

(could be that the seeker’s blind).

Christmas Day, 2025

Algorithm

Happiness, said Zeno of Kition,

Is a good flow of life. Calm, I carry on,

Surveying the flotsam that comes down

The overbearing stream, stoically,

A citizen-patient of my dream

In an enormous emergency room.

I had an algorithm for equilibrium,

Such as was known of yore in Citium,

Which in this global clinic set me free

With simulated annealing from GPT.

Notes: Citium is the latinized form of the name of Zeno's city on the south coast of Cyprus, Greek Κίτιον (Kition), Phoenician KTY.

Simulated Annealing (SA) is an algorithm that approximates the global optimum of a function by employing randomness in searching, so that output can vary for the same input.

Christmas Eve 2025

Attis: A Christmas Enigma

Statue of the self-emasculated daemon Attis at Hieropolis, ancient cult center in Anatolia of the mother goddess Cybele

“Too late, too late,” she cried, and waved her wooden leg.—Anglo-Saxon incantation

Christmas Eve foreshadows Sol Invictus, the Victorious Sun,*

whose name's forgotten, though his war is won.

The lady vanishes, was not understood.

What was the leg she waved? Why is it wood,

lacking a better prosthesis art thinks good?

Too late for what? A light perhaps brighter?

Mysteries all day the unhinged saints recite.

Those providential tales are neither wrong nor righter.

“But what about my child!” the bald ingénue rehearses.

Deep in the mise-en-scène, deballed Attis** curses.

Why does stuff like this bung up the brain?

Speculation chimes with rhymes; it smirks.

Swiftly your ancient memories unwind,

plane going down—at least that works!

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus

 ** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attis

December 21, 2025