Familiarity Breeds Contempt: An Excerpt from "Terrible Truths and Beautiful Lies"

Familiarity Breeds Contempt: 

An  Excerpt from "Terrible Truths and Beautiful Lies"

You think about the arguments that you wanted to have at work today. In your heart of hearts, you knew what his words meant even if he did not. Perhaps he didn't understand what it was that he was saying. But it doesn't matter now; it's all in the past. You let it run off your your back, through your shoulders and along your spine until it dripped off your coccyx to the ground. 

Plip. 

   Plip. 

      Plip. 

         Plop.

Now, it's time to wring out that tissue and toss it aside, to forget those moments and ready yourself for the new day that is tomorrow. All it takes is a bit of preparation. All it takes is tonight. One night of distraction, to invite a right turn at Albuquerque, the random occurrence that makes you forget forever and resets your outlook anew. You won't dwell on the past; only look forward to the path that is forged by the unknown, random occurrences that this night has yet to offer.

So, you order your drink in the crowded bar, turning and leaning against the bar to sip from your tumbler. Your eyes dance over the of the heads of the patrons like a bumblebee looking for that right flower from which to sip some nectar. Then something yanks your gaze downward and your eyes lock for a second with another pair that was already staring back at you. Her eyebrows lower but her gaze is like a laser beam.

You turn away.

You smile slightly to yourself and take another sip of your spirits. You wonder if she is still looking as your eyes turn towards another part of the room but not seeing what is there. You retreat into your head for a split second, crunching on an ice cube as the cold sting of the ice hits your tongue. You whip your head around to see her gaze still locked in place, her smile both devilish and inviting. You roll your eyes in your head and smile to yourself as you hoist yourself from the edge of the bar in her direction, and make your way over. You swim through the crowd like a panther, never having to adjust your eyes. You have no plan. You have no thoughts of any outcome. You sip at your tumbler as you turn to slip through a crevice of shoulders and torsos, and you make it to your destination.

The rest is a blur, and you blink several times as you brush the hair from your eyes. You think of that night four years ago. You let out a sigh, and focus for a moment on the darkened room, the slivers of shadow and light created by the lines of neon light streaming in through the window through the shade as they strike the bed. And there she is, softly sleeping. She is unaware, and you turn over on your side and watch her sleep. You think for a moment that you would touch her because a moment of affection seeps through from the moment into your mindset, but you refrain as if it might spoil the moment like the first footstep into a fresh layer of snow. So, you watch her. Listening to her breath as it rises and falls. You smell her, her breath filtered with slight bits of ash and the deteriorating tequila from the bar earlier tonight.

And then it happens.

Your mind, uncontrollably, flips back to a random page from the novel you've been writing in your mind since you became conscious. An old man, perhaps. Perhaps it was a repeated phrase that you realized was wisdom disguised as a clever saying, a turn of the phrase, a quip: "Familiarity breeds contempt." It sticks in your mind, and your stomach twists and turns. You take a deep breath and roll over on your back, your eyes staring upward at the shadowy ceiling but not seeing. You have retreated into your mind once again, thinking to yourself. You don't want to feel this way. The last four years have been excellent, hasn't it?Yeah, it has. But you still feel it. You try to wash it out of your mind, and you roll out of bed and stroll into the kitchen. You open the refrigerator as the light strikes your face. You wince at the brightness and reach into the vessel, grabbing the carton of milk to take a gulp or two.

The pitter-patter of bare feet enter your mind, getting louder as your eyes look over the edge of the upturned carton, and your eyes fall upon her face. She squints and rubs her eyes, looking up at you as she leans against the door facing. "What're you doing up?" You take the carton from your lips and glance at your phone on the counter: 4:23 a.m. "Just getting a drink. Couldn't sleep. Go back to bed." you say. Defiantly, she affectionately saunters over to you and grabs the carton from your hand, and turns it up to her lips. She gulps at it as a droplet of the white liquid streams from the corner of her mouth and down her neck to disappear behind the lapel of one of your shorts covering her body. You can see a tiny smile stifled behind her last drink, and she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. You can still smell her, and it brings back the thoughts of when you first smelled her a few moments before. Again, you remember: familiarity breeds contempt. That twinge strikes your stomach again as she turns and heads back to the bedroom, never looking back. "Well, don't be too long." she says as her silhouette vanishes into the shadows of the flat.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

It's a phrase that repeats in your mind for the next few minutes, and a sliver of defiance creeps into your being. Clever retorts cloud your mind for a moment, bringing you back and forth to that phrase. Perhaps you are trying to tell yourself something, you think to yourself. You wonder if you need a change. You try to think of yourself in a future tense. Is she there beside you? What do you want to be doing in five years? In two years? In a month? Nothing substantial comes to mind. Your mind becomes foggy and without form. No thoughts appear, only the feeling: familiarity breeds contempt. You can still smell her in the kitchen as you turn to place the carton of milk on the shelf, realizing that you forgot to return the drink to the open fridge. You do so, closing the door behind as the light extinguishes and leaves the kitchen dark once again. You take a deep breath and follow it with a yawn. Your mind becomes blank as fatigue steps in once again, and you return to the warmth of the bedroom and tuck yourself into the warm bed beside her, your back turned to her. You close your eyes, and your attention turns the spinning ceiling fan overhead and the faint sounds of early morning traffic below on the city streets. You drift off to sleep again.

 

Invino Veritas

3/23/25

EOF

Barbarians at the Gates

 Barbarians at the Gates

Lament the scars and tend your sutures,
We toast our pasts and toast our futures,
Remember, immortal, our heroes gone,
It's always darkest before the dawn.
And when the horns of battle sound again,
The bloody banners sway in the wind,
Stand upright and abandon your fates,
And meet the barbarians at the gates.

 

 Invino Veritas

2/28/22

EOF

 

COVID-19

COVID-19

Disconnect. 
Reflect. 
Don't Deflect. 
Don't intersect. 
To respect, 
Doesn't mean genuflect. 
It's O.k. to introspect, 
And temporarily inflect, 
To obtain the maximum effect.

Invino Veritas
4/2/20

EOF

Fireflies From Afar

Fireflies From Afar

In my winter, I loved you from afar,.
Like a sea captain views the North Star,
My hand in yours, as you whisked me away,
Through my dreams that served only to belay,
For in my Spring, I'd encase you in glass,
Firefly to enjoy, delight that would pass,
And send you adrift with morning's first light,
With beacon unnoticed as you take flight,
Yet when Nyx, again, bade darkness to fall,
Another firefly would answer my call,
And into my jar, to delight once more,
Until dawn's first light,  she'd fly out the door.
   Alas, in winter, this love from afar,
   My dear, is for you, and not me by far.


Invino Veritas
9/2/19

EOF

Dragon Matters

Dragon Matters

I saw you on the corner,
Preaching fire while they flatter,
Collecting approval and raising fingers,
While the animosity still lingers,
From followers and mourners,
'Cause In the end it doesn't matter.
You imagined yourself a dragon,
Breathing fire from your ladder,
To the sky, they raised you higher,
As you fed upon their fire,
Drank ambrosia from your flagon,
To that which does not matter;
But when you died,
The world remained the same,
Your words trailed ever ghostly,
Fading ever so mostly,
As they all forgot your game,
Because it didn't matter.
For in the end they turned around,
From your body in the ground,
And found themselves left behind,
And what mattered did they find.

Invino Veritas
5/4/17
(May the Fourth be with you!)
EOF

Stranger Than Fiction

Stranger Than Fiction

Reality's stranger than fiction,
Because I know how the story ends,
Beowulf becomes the caped crusader,
And it's his home the hero defends,
Ahab's white whale is Somalian,
And Queen Jadis rules the desert sands,
In Yemen, Dracul's a thirsty fool,
Readers think hail from far off Iran,
And yet King Lear shouts from Israel,
With Cordelia, dear, ever in tow,
No longer resembling Robin Hood,
But the Sheriff we've all come to know,
Yes, it's surely stranger than fiction,
Wherein the tongues shall all at once fork,
If ever it once made sense to me,
It is when aliens came from Ork.


Invino Veritas
2/21/17
EOF

Oblivious

Oblivious

She's beautiful because she's oblivious,
And I wouldn't want to break her glass,
If she knew -- if our eyes met, she'd know,
And therefore, she'd not be beautiful,
Because she would then know,
Because she would then change;

And now I feel dirty,
And I'll go home,
And drown in pop culture--
Whip myself,
Beat myself,
Tear myself,
Come to terms,
And return.

I'll catch another beauty,
Across the darkened bar,
In the flickering candlelight,
And she'll be beautiful;
She'll be oblivious,
Until she knows,
Then I'll feel dirty,
Again.


Invino Veritas
2/14/17
EOF

Rabble

Rabble

Content, am I, within my own thoughts now,
Amongst the rabble and theories of how,
The visions of sports do not penetrate,
Nor do the rumm'ling voices of debate,
Catching but snippets that pass without note,
On the surface, these topics are remote,
Turning about one another as swill,
From the ales and spirits, their bellies, fill,
Alas, a break, where the music enters,
Moving away from the steady centers,
And my mind topples atop with the head,
Tipping it back, forgetting what was said,
   Perhaps by choice or the subtle refrain,
   Drowning the rabble twice ever again.

Invino Veritas
2/14/17
EOF

Then

Then

I wish I knew you then,
When stars lit up your eyes,
When the passion you made,
Would bubble and not fade,
And the fires that burned,
Did not die.

I wish I'd seen your soul,
Before the frost chilled your bones,
When the gaze and a word,
Were the thunder they heard,
And the excited cadences,
Struck like stones.

But I barely know you now,
So it's the best it's ever been,
When a beer incites the smile,
I've been waiting for a while,
I'm glad to call you,
A friend.




Invino Veritas
1/27/17
EOF

Legal Tender

Legal Tender

They told us it was,
Legal tender for all debts,
And justified wars for all vets,
But their heart's in the tank,
Where the submarine sank,
And they offer no regrets.
They pointed out the heroes,
When they shot the old man down,
And the murderers they thusly found,
Were justified under the law,
According to the evidence the jury saw,
Followed by yet another round.
She wasn't prepared,
When she returned to camp,
With dreams to be the champ,
That catcalls and requests,
To reveal her breasts,
Would make her eyes, instead, damp.
And it was the legal tender,
That eventually built the wall,
Between the big and the small,
Between the eyes and the ears,
Predicated on manufactured fears,
And a will to control it all.


Invino Veritas
9/6/16
EOF

Aethereal Secrets

Aethereal Secrets

As I lay here now awake,
In this bed I refuse to make,
Thumbing through your posts of woe,
Telling me what I should know,
Dogs and cats and killer cops,
Tenets wise and GMO crops,
Pocket squirrels and green landscapes,
Attract my eyes with escapes,
And sunlight gold across my screen,
Returns my mind to pastures seen,
A million miles past the moon,
Within the glint of Neptune's boon,
Fiery furnaces and bubbling seas,
Churning gasses, a frozen breeze,
Scales beyond mere mortal sight,
Floating within eternal night,
Yet, in the aether where I splay,
Between the two, here I lay,
Undulating with each wave,
Competing voices declared to save,
Surrround myself with sight and sound,
Locked inside on solid ground,
In treasure chests filled with gold,
And the secrets that I hold.


Invino Veritas
7/10/16
EOF

Cherry Pie

Cherry Pie

I'm a dime store cherry pie,
Sweet to the taste,
And glossy to the eye,
Country diner key lime pie,
Great on Sundays,
When time passes by.
But in dawn's roast,
On Monday morning,
I'm suddenly buttered toast,
Appearing most anywhere,
Not worth the boast,
Monday's hangover remedy,
To be slammed,
With a grimace,
    And toast to malady.
I lift you up,
Put you down,
Turn that frown,
Upside-down.
But tucked away,
Whilst you stray,
And lose your way,
Ready for Tuesday.


Invino Veritas
6/13/16
EOF

The Advocate

Today,
I am the advocate.
But not your's.
With sideways glance,
My eye slithers around you,
Over you,
Through you.
But I am cute,
A glittering charm,
A glint in the eye,
And I can do no wrong.
I am constructed with sugar,
And a sprinkle of spice,
But snips and snails,
And puppy dog tails,
Keep me anything but nice.
I am the bastard cat,
Swatting at the jar,
Watching it crash to the floor.
Yet, here I yawn,
Because I am beautiful,
I am berries and cream,
Their realized dream,
The apple of their eye.
I am the sparkling gem,
A star that won't dim,
That sizzling ember,
They can't deny.


Invino Veritas
4/7/16
EOF

Mea Culpa, Universe

Mea Culpa, Universe

My Universe, it appears to me,
Shifted focus, that I can see,
You raised me up and brought me here,
So far,
So good,
No harm,
No fear,
But Universe, you dirty rat,
On a dime, where I'm at,
Turning left,
Turning right,
Out of place,
Out of sight.
So Universe, here we are,
Took my health, took my car,
Apparently,
In store for me,
Yet to learn,
Yet to see.
And Universe, the other side,
Of your moon where darkness hides,
See your test,
See your game,
Mea Culpa,
Myself to blame.
So, Universe, challenge accepted,
Obfuscations intercepted,
From the ashes,
From the fires,
A starry furnace,
I climb your spires.


InvinoVeritas
3/12/16
EOF

The Spoils of Battle

The Spoils of Battle

That moment when your friends aren't friends,
And you've no idea at whom you're mad,
When it's too late and faced with adjustment,
When you're the wall and they're the brad,
When the hammer falls and it's too late,
And in your mind where you berate,
You dull the senses and numb the mind,
You ponder change and question fate,
Count your blessings and make excuses,
Dowse the fires with stalwart oathings,
Rally the troops and brandish flamberges,
Charge with torches lit with loathings.
Take the hill and light the fires,
Wave your colors and brave the towers,
Loose the dogs and charge as mongrels,
Ravenous for passage against the powers,
Rebuild your kingdom with walls of granite,
And allies fair to stand by your side,
Seek alliance and brothers in common,
Walking in arms with fortified stride,
And at that moment when you remember,
When day is done and night seems far,
Know that the fires that stand ever burning,
Are marked by many a battle scar.


Invino Veritas
2/12/16
EOF

Invisible

Invisible

We don't like him,
He does too few,
We won't invite him,
No, he won't do,
He will not speak,
Nor will he blend,
No, he won't fit,
Nor, to us, ascend,
But it's so lonely,
Inside his head,
He's all alone,
From us instead,
We can't relate,
We're far ahead,
We've lived better,
And he is dead,
But here's a flower,
Here's all the kind,
When laid to rest,
We'll pay him mind,
He'll be the best,
Friend that I'll find,
Though, when he lived,
Was left behind.


Invino Veritas
2/8/16
EOF

Sunday Lament

Sunday Lament

There's no inspiration without admiration,
No direction and no gifts,
No talents and skills for the pressurized,
No openings and no rifts,
No impetus, no cataclysms,
No sproutings and no light,
There can be no circumstances,
That provide for our delight.
Without admiration there's no inspiration,
No puzzlement nor epiphany,
No hidden treasures for dreams and hopes,
No Archimedian discovery,
So praise the child who imitates,
The songstress with homage to pay,
Reimagine our idols' intentions,
And creations that carve the way,
But inhibit the course of simple men,
The dreamers who dare to try,
We'll kiss admiration, inspiration,
And to each, wave goodbye.

Invino Veritas
11/8/15
EOF

.

Los Provocadores

Los Provocadores

There was a Glorp that met a Glorp,
And though each had experitise,
Without waste, but speed of chase,
They commenced to disagree.
The elder Glorp said at once,
'My sir, although you correlate,
You direct result without cause;
They simply don't relate.'
But the younger Glorp in retort,
Scoffed and rightly said,
' Your research shall besmirch,
And misdirect instead.'
Therefore another Glorp,
Added to each, some dismay,
As another Glorp listened in,
To what he had to say,
"Fiddlesticks and Balderdash,
And bull malarky, too!
Pay no attention to this rabble!"
He professed with much ado.
"Here, here you scallywags!"
The grey-haired Glorp agreed,
"We must, to reason, lend an ear,
Would you lend them, please?
Quite right, indeed you are,
My fellow purveyor hence,
Your silver tongue wastes no time,
And more importantly, my pence!"
But then the scoffs turned to shouts,
And the palms turned into fists,
And the two Glorps from before,
Thought best to not assist.
So hats in hand and papers tucked,
Outside, the two Glorps did sneak,
And each Glorp to the other,
Asked, "Same time next week?"


Invino Veritas
11/2/15
EOF

The Question of the Conflicting Moralities

In my years, I've spent a lot of time mulling over the finer points of this thing called 'morality'.  I asked myself the age old questions: "What is good?", "What is bad or evil?", "What is right?", and "What is wrong?". It's easy to sit in our corner offices or our cubicles as, perhaps, I'm doing right now and and pull half-assed resolutions out of our rear center pockets to sate our philosophical and emotional desires of how we want the world and the universe to be. But that wouldn't be a good thing in the long run. It would just set us up for disappointment, and the inevitability for struggling against an unyielding universe, as it would be.

So, I set on this philosophical (perhaps even existential to some degree) journey that took several years to come to fruition. I was fraught with confusion over how one could argue in favor of moral circumstances or constructs against another with the same conclusion, but with different results. I found myself nearly incapable, at times, to articulate what I thought I knew. After all, people should be kind and compassionate towards other people. That's the moral thing, right? (See the previous article: The Morality of the Two Wrongs) It was simply confounding how one moral construct could possibly conflict with another. Sure, I fully understood that the world isn't black and white. Life and interactions can be complicated as well as complex. That's no surprise and not unknown to me at this point. But since whether or not something is difficult has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not something is moral, I had to abandon the notion of whether or not that was the correct way to approach this question.

So, I was stuck again. Here I was, confronted with the conundrum of moral conflict. I tried to break it down and simplify things in an attempt to find some sort of explanation using Occam's Razor. But that was just a cop-out as I quickly realized that I was trying to make things easier in order to erect a substitute that satisfied my desires rather than striking at the heart of the matter, the resolution to this quandary. I decided that I had to take it on the knife's edge rather than glancing off the blunt side of the blade. Why could this contradiction exist? How is it that these universal constructs, found from one corner of the earth to the other, in all walks of life and cultures, could possibly find themselves at odds with one another? It didn't make any sense whatsoever to me.

I was ready to pull my hair out by the roots. I wanted to take a sledgehammer to anything that would shatter into a thousand pieces simply to relieve the stress this caused me every so often. Was it simply because I wanted to be right? Well, that's a silly question; of course I want to be right. But I wanted to be right for the right reasons, and that meant that I wanted to get it right - even at the expense of my own complacency or notions of comfort. Then I started taking a look at other people at their ideas of morality, and how sometimes they deviated from the universal moralities as discovered by Jonathan Haidt. Across the board, it appeared as if  varying degrees of interpretation existed, whether individually or from doctrine to doctrine. From culture to culture and society to society there were even a few extras thrown into the mix. But neither of those circumstances seemed to be immune to the overlapping inevitability of the moral conflict. Eventually, someone would make the case that they were being wronged using a moral argument where in return the "wrongdoer" would accuse the "complainer" of violating some moral tenet. It would not be enough to simply "win" the argument, but rather it would only be enough if a.) it could be articulated, b.) it could be understood relatively easily, and c.) it could be practiced with relative ease. Yet, before all of that, it had to be deciphered across cultures and societies. It had to be broken down into some universal medium and translated for the masses.

Then I had an epiphany.

In the blink of an eye, the clouds parted. I had been looking at the problem in the wrong way, from the wrong angle. I was attempting resolve what I have come to call the opposing arguments of conflicting moralities from the wrong angle, the entirely incorrect perspective. This stroke of lightning that would alter my perspective on the problem would become my gateway to resolution. The conflict didn't lie in the moralities, but rather in the argumentative constructs themselves, in the very assumptions about what is universally true versus what is personally understood. In other words, there was a direct conflict between an individual concept (personal) and group concepts (universal). This was a fallacy of division (combination depending n which side you're coming from). Indeed, the universal constructs are more than what it is that the personal constructs are because they are observed by multiple groups of peoples whereas the individual constructs are based upon individual, societal, or otherwise cultural idiosyncrasies. This is where the logic was broken and why it didn't make any sense that one moral construct could conflict with another one. My mind had been telling me something was wrong with that, it just didn't know how to articulate what it knew. (Eat your heart out, Einstein!)

Now comes the simple explanation:

(Looking at you, again, Einstein.)

1.) The world's peoples and societies have agreed on a basic set of moral constructs. This has been observed all over the earth in numerous cultures and societies, and are the same everywhere. These simple constructs are the Universal Moral Constructs (UMC), and they are absolute. UMCs are top-level constructs and cannot be compared to constructs below this tp level . They are constant, unwavering, and persist as moral constructs and symbols of morality itself under any and all situations and contexts. These are the constructs by which members of a culture or society judge other members of that same society or culture.

2.) Each person interprets and incorporates belief systems and behavior patterns inherent of their environment and of the individuals with whom they interact. This includes themselves and others as well as physical presences or not (i.e. on TV, radio, pictures, movies, etc.) These may or may not include ideas borrowed from the UMCs. This can collectively be called a moral perspective or otherwise a collection of Individual or Personal Moral Constructs (PMC). Unlike UMCs, PMCs may waiver, disappear, or otherwise change over time or all at once. This is why PMCs are relative as they relate to individuals and single cultures or societies rather than to UMCs. (People, societies, or cultures may adopt UMCs into their repertoire, but because they relate to the whole of the peoples of the earth, they are disregarded as PMCs and defined as UMCs.)

3.) Because of their relationships to individual cultures, societies, and persons, PMCs are not comparable to UMCs which relate to all the peoples of the world as a whole. To do so is unsound; they are logical in-equivalents and are therefore not comparable nor relatable to one another.

OK, so how does this help us when confronted or otherwise involved with this sort of argument? Well, the simple answer is also the easy answer at this point. For one, we can't expect other people to hold the same PMCs as ourselves because they only really relate to ourselves, and therefore, there is no argument to be had. Anyone who argues this is automatically discredited. While two people can certainly hold the same PMCs dear, any variances in those interpretations result in clear differences and therefore are not comparable. In a nutshell, we can view the different argument types like so:

1.) UMC vs PMC Arguments: The PMC is automatically discredited because UMCs are absolute, and PMCs only relate to the individual and/or culture or society.

2.) UMC vs UMC Arguments: Two wrongs don't make a right. Both parties lose out in this one assuming that each party is guilty of the claims by the other.

3.) PMC vs PMC Arguments: Neither one should expect the other to follow moral constructs that are purely individualistic and only relatable to themselves. Should this happen, then they are both discredited.

In the end, if it's a personal moralistic philosophy, then its simply just not reasonable or justifiable to tell people how they should live. On the other hand, if it's something that is universally understood to be a moral construct, then it's not so unreasonable to expect everyone to behave in accordance with those standards. So, the next time you run into a conversational bully who wants to go toe-to-toe with you on all the horrible moral violations you've committed, know that now you can tussle with the best of them in a battle of wits. (Besides, on a personal note, I don't think too many people have thought this through anyways, and won't know what to say other than blatantly deny it without evidence to the contrary. The standard knee-jerk seems to be that two wrongs make them right. )

(Go figure.)

Invino Veritas
10/6/15
EOF

Dharma

Dharma

There, all at once when the outer ring blew,
The scientists immediately knew,
T'was time to vacate the Tarxian moon,
Leaving behind the rare Tarxian boon,
A jerk to the left and swing to the right,
And the silvery craft thusly took flight,
But a chunk of rock pounded the craft's wing,
As the silvery craft thusly did spring,
Then, all at once, it wheezed and it sputtered,
Clinging to his chair, the pilot muttered,
"Distinguished colleague and life-long friend,
Childhood buddy, we've escaped the end,
Alas, I lament those who're left behind,
And curse the soldiers who, us, seek to find,
So enagage the cloak and point the nose,
To a yellow star - right there, I suppose!"
And so, two friends, in a flash of blue light,
Left behind their lives and vanished from sight,
Past the expanse, the Sea of Endless Days,
Past nebulae of endless purple haze,
On a beam of twisted olivine light,
Behind Jupiter's cone of endless night,
Past Io and Titan, Ganymede, too,
Skipping, as pebbles, where trouble shant brew,
When, there, like a glint in a newborn's eye,
A tiny reflection each did espy,
Upon the approach a lonely station,
Circled the planet with sad rotation,
And there on the side: a bumper sticker,
From which the star's amber light did flicker,
A message of warning or perhaps it was pride,
A brand to all who dared to come inside:
"If, at first, we cannot deflower it,
It must be, for us, to devour it,
And if neither is cause for us to keep,
We, the monkeys, shall surely fall asleep.
So please bring tribute that you've meant for us,
But whatever you do, please don't bore us."
Now, it was clear a mistake had been made,
Maybe the choices deserved to be weighed,
The refugees leaned in towards each other,
Each agreed to listen to his brother,
When the pilot spoke to clear his mind,
"My friend, I think we are agreed and find,
'Tis better to be a slave far away,
Than a monkey on this Earth any day."
So away they flew past the distant moons,
Past Jupiter's cone and frigid Neptune,
Across the purple haze and nebulae,
To Tarxian space and the endless sea,
And when our heroes, nay, our refugees,
Before the Emperor, dropped to their knees,
But fate once again meddled as before,
The Emperor's distaste fell to the floor,
Bestowed upon them in spite of their dearth,
Life with monkeys on remote planet Earth.

Invino Veritas
9/2/15
Picture Added 9/3/15
EOF