Explorations and Discoveries

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090214

LOVE, DO!

Valentine!
Do be mine.
You and I do fit.

Do not break
the pledge we made
to love, to live.

Do not, ever, quit!


090212

MAKING FUN OF IT

Let me tell you something, Hon.
Work is easy, work is fun,
if only for this silly quirk:
work is, oh-so-fun to shirk!


MAKE BOOK ON IT

This world:
I hold it holds
no better friend
than just about any
librarian.


SILENT SPRING,
FRUITLESS FALL

Humans,
we’re part Pollyanna,
part Svengali.
Who but Nature
can tame our folly?


GARLIC PANCAKES

The meaning of a word
like “feckless” can be learned
by doing something reckless;
using last night’s skillet, say,
for this morning’s breakfast.


ENRICHING THE SOIL

One by one, I ease my thoughts
gently from my brain.
I strew them on the open ground,
wards of sun, wind, rain.

I let them all grow brambly,
let them surge and twine,
then later, plow them under;
all to make this garden mine.


RETICENT

Hello?
Hello.

Hello to
each of you
I’m afraid
to hello to.


REVERBERATING
QUESTION

why why WHY
is IS so SO?

why why WHY
IS is so so?


WORN OUTWARD

You may suffer, but not I.

Of this,
I was convinced—
till misfortune stole that buffer
(told the lie) and,
as I winced,
rubbed away the calluses
of my indifference.


SKEERED

I want m’ mom,
I want m’ dad,
I want the life
I use-ta had.


GETTING, BY NOT-GETTING

I get my news second-hand,
like sunlight from the moon,
and filter out the harmful stuff
by not getting it too soon.


090211

OUT, DISTANCED

Poets of the ages, literary sages—
your esoteric rambles
(raptures, rants, and rages
deemed sublime by fellow minds)
leave common minds a shambles.

Bruised and stunned, we mirror shun—
or grope toward the profound
with those who deign to meet us
on more common ground.


090210

ALL AGLOW

I asked the moon
the secret
of her luminous
complexion.

Graciously
she answered—
after much reflection.


090209

BLUR OF FUR

Besides lounging and scrounging,
a cat has one proclivity—
to turn its ready body
into a furry of activity.


090208

COLLECTED WORKS

Arrogance and errors,
bewilderment, joy, terrors,
riddles you solved in grade school,
punch lines you’ll catch next year,
wheat and chaff, gloss and dross;
all these, here, you’ll come across,

I write for myself, as I see us:
I write to capture and free us.


090207

TRUE? NOT TRUE?

A tsunami
is more significant
than a dew drop.

A Nobel laureate
is more valuable
than an errant child.

A Lippizan
is more interesting
than a horsefly.

The embroilments of nations
are more worthy of attention
than a stubbed toe.

So we think.


090206

RELAX, THIS ISN’T
GOING TO HURT

You, in the corner;
under the bed,
senses shut tight,
fetally curled.
You, in the corner;
near-dead with dread:

You are the one
who must save the world.


STUCK

Crises loom at every turn.
Life has grown unsteady.
I know my world’s about to end.
I know I should get ready.

I know. I know. I know. I know.
(I know I won’t be ready.)


LIKE TO LIKE

I like
to be
around people
who like
to be
around people.


DEEP DUH!

It’s profound,
or else simplistic—
inside each fruitcake
is a mystic.


ONE TO WOW

I like the word “profound.”
It sounds so full and round—
something from a tomb or womb;
something to astound.


FAITH-BASED INITIATIVE

Religion and I parted ways
some time ago…

maybe we are groping toward
a reunion; who knows?

I don’t have enough faith
to operate on faith;
just enough to work on
a working hypothesis.


090205

ONE FAMILY, ONE FUTURE

Mother, father, sister, brother—
from nest of child,
from else or other,
we stole feather after feather.

Brother, sister, father, mother—
let’s bless the child,
all else, and other:
for we are nestlings all together.


090204

CEREAL THRILLERS

Life is bland
(as plain as bran)
without sweetness,
nuttiness, et cet’ra.

So, it’s nice
that we find spice
in each other.
(That’s our raisin d’etra.)


090203

CRAZY WISDUMB

“Enlightenment”
is progressive disillusionment.

I am a master of this state.

For example, I just heard that
“expanded consciousness,”
is a kind of super sensory awareness.

To me, that sounds suspiciously
like multitasking.


090202

ABOUT THINGS

Reading is a good way to discover
things you don’t know about;
and things that you
would never even know
you don’t know about
without reading about them first.


090201

BLUFF DWELLERS

We hold the wild at bay;
one paycheck, one illness,
one frailty away.

One hurricane, one flood,
one earthquake, one day
will strip our bluffs away.


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