We never plan for the worst,
no matter how grim it gets.
The whole world may die of thirst
watching the dying sun set
and still, we think there is time.
We can’t imagine an end
or pit so deep we can’t climb
our way out. We just pretend
there is always a lifeboat
with some room for us, at least,
that will somehow stay afloat
after others’ hope has ceased.
It’s a sad and lonely state
if you’re the sole survivor;
and no point in blaming fate
if you don’t like the mirror.
27 May 2025
How we treat the very least,
whether human or rough beast,
criminal, servant or priest,
from next door, far west or east,
speaks volumes on what we are.
It seems strange and most bizarre
to place one above the bar
and one below. It’s not far
from calling something “other”
down a slippery slope, brother,
discovering another
way to screw us all over.
Take a look in the mirror;
objects that appear are nearer
than you think – and what you fear
is looking back, sharp and clear.
23 May 2025
You’ve a chair there at the table;
food for all – that ancient fable
doesn’t take into account
that no amount, for some, is able
to fulfil their need for more.
Never mind others are poor
and just take up too much space;
their place is outside the door.
Put a roast in every pot;
we hear that old line a lot.
You gnaw the bones or chew the fat:
it’s like that. Tell me it’s not.
Look around the room some time:
how far did you need to climb
to crawl up in that soft chair,
from down there in the slime?
Just who did you leave behind,
thinking that they wouldn’t mind
giving you their portion too?
You know it’s true. You’re not blind.
22 MAY 2025
Leave a CommentThe world evolves without suspense or trick;
it is and it becomes, with no delay,
both seed and flower’s dried husk, derelict
from newborn babe within each single day.
What seems to be so permanent and cast
in stone, begins to crumble at its birth;
mere nothingness is all that seems to last –
and we know just exactly what that’s worth.
The past and future are both fantasy;
they live both in our minds, and not at all.
You may as well believe you are a tree
to think spring comes again after your fall.
And yet, life is worth living, here and now.
You’re given when and where; what’s left is how.
21 MAY 2025
Leave a CommentNothing that is temporary becomes infinite;
each thing’s just a project. It starts and it finishes,
simply an effect of a cause, made of composites
that wax and wane. Being comes and then diminishes.
Everything is empty – it is not separated
although it seems to be neatly subdivided.
It is only by illusions it is frustrated;
in that shadow state nothing feels it is united.
Anything that’s trapped in time’s grip stays motionless;
it is not really living, merely an appearance.
A thing grows to another thing, not quite motiveless,
but only what whole contains it maintains coherence.
Something doesn’t come into being from emptiness;
our busy minds create those lines of separation.
While we glorify our own sense of great sentience,
the world is otherwise engaged in all creation.
20 MAY 2025
Leave a CommentHiggledy-piggledy
Public, John Q.
voted for this mess and
gave it no thought:
just what would happen
when truth lost its way
and no ticket back
could be bought.
Higgledy-piggledy,
Mrs. Q. Public
regurgitated her
poor husband’s pablum,
cut off her nose and
destroyed her good looks;
that’s what you get
when you don’t read books.
Higgledy-piggledy
Mr. and Mrs.
bought all the lies they were told,
and elected
a king and a savior,
to keep them from thinking
they needed integrity
to be respected.
14 MAY 2025
Leave a CommentWhat’s so urgent
all of a sudden?
It’s not like the world woke up yesterday
as a hot mess,
broken into tiny fractions
by some new denominator.
Where have you been?
Wake up and smell the coffee;
some of us been drinking a pot a day
since Reaganomics
trickled down from the septic tank
on our teenage heads.
Some even longer.
My grandpa had a book titled
“The Antichrist in Rome”
in a worn leather cover from before the depression.
Was he born in 1900 already woke,
or just poor, orphaned, son of a drunk fiddler
who toured the Great Lakes
looking for the sporting life?
Who knows.
What has changed since then?
Not much,
if we’re “being honest.”
Illusions come and go. Some die harder than others.
My second generation immigrant self
was chewing out of its
cocoon
before the last election.
13 MAY 2025