Today is a Day
It is not tomorrow
it is not yesterday
unique to itself
it may seem routine
and familiar
but it is entirely different,
here only once.
The wind forms the sail
and the waves are pushed
by forces of wind and moon.
Each wave, lives in this moment
and is gone when it’s gone.
We are formed by this wind
and pushed too by wind and moon
as we live in this moment;
and when it is gone, it is gone.
But for now it is today.
Listen for Wisdom
Your beliefs are everything
and your wisdom unassailable
You can be told of nothing,
the door to your mind unpassable.
I ask you to suspend
such hard fought disbelief
and open the door to another.
Who is willing to bring some relief
to the suffering of a confused brother.
For the more narrow our sources of thought,
then the more radical beliefs emerge.
And we become one fraught
with fears, which brings us to surge
into darkness, where wisdom no longer shines.
And we see a world divisive and of pain.
Allowing us to be dragged further into the mines,
in search of something lost, and something to gain.
All because you let others with evil intent
control your mind, closing the door with words
of hate, and keeping you in their circus tent,
while they sharpen their weapons and swords.
Before they putting you to their evil use.
Please my friend, open your mind one more time
to ideas that you continue to disabuse.
And let wisdom shine in all corners of your mind.
…. before it is too late!
Soul Wish
Let me bring the world texture
Let me be a brilliant color mixture
Or maybe, I’d be the base of a sculpture
Full of life, and activity it would capture
Or the base-color of a painting, green
I think, for it must be of beauty and serene
This color is for everywhere, as in spring
And the stems of the flowers I would bring
Or because, I have nothing more than rhymes
Of a poet in my capacity, and in these times
I’ll bring you, as I can, if I might, just a tiny smile
As you read this, and think of me for just a while
Memorial and Loss of Truth
This weekend we fly flags.
There are parades, and remembrances
for heroes that died for our freedom
and all lovers of fairness and democracy.
Yet it is through Republican filibuster
that we will fail to honor a hard-won freedom,
and demonstrate that power wins over values,
and insurrection trumps democracy.
Now we know our freedom is not guaranteed.
We know that democracy may not be permanent.
That power is valued more than the sacrifices
which we celebrate this very weekend.
Our flags fly at half-mast as we grieve the loss.
The loss of truth!
I hear I was an unruly child, and I was fortunate to have been reshaped by the remedies of the day, to be a bit less unruly man…
Remedies
As a child I knew not how to behave
long before I had a wisker to shave
long before I had a notion of right
and wrong, I found myself in fright
for the remedies correcting my sins.
For the forced apologies to make amends
of transgressions in witness of family friends.
For words I never knew that I knew.
As I tried them, I found something new.
The taste of soap is a remedy of first order
such that I wished I had a mental recorder.
For then I’d know the word I shouldn’t say
to avoid the taste of soap that lasts all day.
Nor, for that matter the sound of a belt
on my behind, and how deleteriously it felt
as a remedy for a child that was learning still
to behave while expressing his (not so) free will.
Factory Gray
There was a grittiness about it
which envelops you as you enter;
the floor is gray,
the walls gray,
the people gray.
Gray dust hung in dim light
the floor gritty under foot
you touch nothing
for the gritty dust
was everywhere.
No one smiles,
no humming,
no whistling,
just move through it
the same as yesterday.
Mind numbing repetition,
interrupted by danger,
and irrational conflicts
which you hope to avoid.
No outside indication
is it day or night
even the clock
told you the hour
not ante or post
meridiem.
So you work
to live, and
finance hope
and deliverance
from gray to white
Someday.
Conflating race indifference and hate with the dearth of O2 in India at the height of a pandemic surge… reminds me of how precious O2 really is. And yet it is our most abundant resource.
Oxygen
Oxygen becomes precious
when it is needed most,
When breath is reduced to wheeze
by the maskless and closeness,
or by oppressive indifference.
When division ensures hate
consumes the air in the room,
to sell at a higher price.
They profit by mining
the abundant air and racism.
Few rule at the expense
of the many and profit
from what all need as
our minds become confused
due to lack of oxygen.
Can a crossword puzzle incomplete be a metaphor for life, in sense of unfinished works that occupy us until we can somehow move on… and the dark places makes us wonder what opportunities were lost as we occupy our minds and waste time?
Crossword
I think, leave it alone,
Stupid worn magazine
With puzzle barely born
Words down
Words across
Words all around
I could ignore
If it wasn’t unfinished
By someone long before
Black voids are opportunities lost.
Nothing escapes the realization
Of the gravitational cost
Weighing into someone’s
Unfinished works
Into loneliness of no-one’s
But my own bent time
And stretched space
In occupy of my mind
Stuttering Sputtering Mind
When I write it is with speed
I don’t so much as compose, as think
What comes to mind is through my fingers
Then I misspell and I cannot ignore and keep moving
It seems I must correct right away
Is it my fingers failing me?
Or my mind stuttering?
It is as if I am sutterting as I speak
I try to speak slow to avoid such stutter
But I write faster than I speak
Or so it seems it is only
By backspace that I may be coherent
And recover from my stuttering
Sputtering mind.
Better to have trouble turning brain off at sleep than trouble turning it on at awake!
Seems breakfast is now the most important meal of the morning.
Why are there medium, large and extra large eggs, but no small ones? Did all sizes get a promotion? I think the small ones ended up at Denny’s for breakfast.
The difference between persistence and stubbornness can only be found by looking more ardently in the mirror.
I’ve often been called a smart-ass… I always thought this is better than a dumb-ass.
The difference between elbows and knees, is that one is for making space the other for making peace.
The only thing worse than telling someone not to stress out is that there’s nothing to be stressed about.
Procrastination really gets you nowhere.
Everytime I get in line, I’m the last.
Hemingway said the key to writing is one good sentence, I’m still waiting for one.
Luck is my core competency… I think it is the best one to have.
Upside-down and inside-out seems like oxymorons, yet are perfect expressions paired with downside-up and outside-in.