Aging

I do not seek the music of violence,
For I know only too well that
The world will bring it to me, anyway,
And too soon.

For so long, my eyes have been unclear;
For so many years, have I strained to see —
This is the dim mirror of my regret,
These are once new tools grown useless.

Somewhere, hidden from light and sound,
A boy sits, fresh-faced, expectant:
He calls to me as from a distant room,
He bids me to bring him his promised life.

These are not negative thoughts:
This is the way Reality smells,
Like too familiar fabric, well used,
Where rain and stain are just events, not

Misfortunes

Sketches – 68

The sepia present.

Is that a sepia-tone painting?

Yes

Historical?

No, it’s representative of
Our current times.
How we may look back on them
Forty years from now

So as quaint and out of fashion
As faded black-and-white photographs?

More like lithographs,
But yes

And what do you see
As the essence of our times?

I haven’t worked that out, but,
Blindness and hubris are in there.
We cannot see what is right in front of us.
Most people have stopped looking,
Unless they think there’s a good
IG post to be seen.

And the hubris?

Oh, that’s everywhere.
We are trying to create
Artificial intelligence
Without genuine wisdom;
Machines can learn, but
Kids are left untaught;
And we sit in judgment of all
Previous generations and societies,
As though we are so much better.

That’s a poem right there

Now it needs to become a painting.
Do you mind cooking tonight?

No problem.
How about chicken curry,
Squash, and whole grain bread?

That’s hubris, right there,
Thinking you can pull that off

But it’s more or less sepia

Then I’ll more or less
Try to eat it

Daily Act

We live our parts, and play our lives,
As sons and daughters, husbands, wives,
An amphitheater for a stage
To daily act. So we engage
To say our lines with no one there —
At least there’s sky and good, fresh air —
For whether it’s sunny or it pours,
What’s real about us lives

Outdoors

Wedding

Society and its rituals, designed
For extroverts by extroverts,
Calls for community celebration
Of commitments so large,
No one can really grasp their significance.
Yet even in rites repeated for
Countless generations, humans place
Whatever individuality they can on it,
Like decorated caves or cubicles,
Or like music and gowns and dances
With specific meaning to family, friends, lovers.
As for me: I was there as part of the family,
Part of the spectacle,
Part of the commitment,
And as filled with the weight of the meaning of it all
As I was on my own wedding night
Nineteen years ago,
Dancing with the same beautiful woman
Who gifted me this family on that day.

out from the shadows

another one falls by the way

how many will i lose?

 

so in compartments will i rest

(to pass the time you fail the test)
 
for hiding’s what i know the best

(so little's what we choose)



another call, another voice,

another trip to emptiness —

less melody, a lot more noise,

and all of it’s a mess —



behold: another turn of earth,

another gift of sun and birth,

with beaches bright or bills to pay

who sees another’s fallen



by the way