35. Just This Way

Two thousand years ago or so
We're told a child was born
With no limit to what he knew or could do
Give him water
He gave you wine
Taught his teachers about the divine
Broke their rules
Called them fools
Showed them how to pray
And love others in a simple way
When they refused to believe what he had to say
He used his words to manipulate matter like modelling clay
His final proof was his body that escaped decay
I wonder how many teachers in his church today
Believe it happened just this way
Beware of teachers with lists of rules
You can be sure the child teacher would rebuke them too
He only has one rule 
Love others as you want them to love you.

34. One Dark Night

Fear is always near
A close companion
Never far away
Sometimes it whispers 
Sometimes it shouts
Sometimes it shudders
At the glimpse of a ghastly ghost
Hovering just out of sight
Hiding in a brain
Rewired by the terror of one dark night
Once a trusted protector 
Now a faulty danger detector
With a missile guidance system
Firing at both real and imagined threats
Repairs are underway
I hope it's fixed one day
Until then
Fear for me
Is like an once close buddy
Suffering from PTSD

33. Cosmic Birthday

December 12, 2012 is a very special day
To millions who believe an ancient prophecy
To me 12-12-12 is special in a very different way
Who else has two sons born four years apart
And share the very same cosmic birthday
Not many I imagine
Perhaps a few
But only I fathered Hamish then Joe
Once small children
Now full grown men
Who've passed the test
And can be trusted to be and do their best
I was once their teacher
They now teach me
They're in their prime
I'm well passed mine
Just the way life intends it to be
For a father and two sons
Who share a common ancestry

32. Of Human Herds

It's not a proud moment
I watch and wince
A human herd
A shopping stampede
Pushing 
Shoving
Stretching 
Grasping 
Arms brimming with toys
A sea of ecstatic faces beaming with joys
It's Black Friday
And what a dark day it is
The pride of creation
Deformed by a consumer mutation
Enslaved by a shopping addiction
It's not a proud moment
But remember this
There is a Good Friday, too

31. Memory Man

At a time of desperate need
I reached out to the memory of a man
Who made me feel special
Not because of what I knew or could do
But because of who I was
His grandson
Who could be anybody and do anything
I believed him too
Until the day of losses when life said otherwise
For weeks and months the losses mounted
Then one day I found his ring
Resting on a shelf in a family memory cabinet
Waiting to remind me
I was still special
Not for what I knew or could do
But for who I was
His grandson
Now a grandfather
But not one like him
I was too busy doing
To play with my grandchildren
A grandfather who joked he was a human doing
Not a human being
It was no joke
I heeded his call from the grave
And started wearing his ring
A constant reminder
That his gift to me
Was also a gift for my grandchildren
It's been six years since the day of losses
When I started wearing his ring
I believe again I can be anybody and do anything
Most of all a loving grandfather
To each of my many grandchildren
The ring I no longer wear
I lost it the other day in a large green field
Playing and laughing with two of my youngest grandchildren
I searched to find it
But it had been reclaimed by my grandfather
His memory had finished the work he had begun
Now it was my turn
To be a grandfather to my grandchildren
Like the grandfather he was to me

30. Mysterious Maker

I didn't know what was in store
When I peeked through a crack in the poetry door
What I saw I'd only heard of before
A hiding mind grinding
Mining my experience for poetry verse
To make sense of my universe
As I watched it work
I couldn't help but wonder
Could it also be the mysterious maker
Of intuitions, dreams, hunches, gut feelings, The Gift and more
I think it's time to open the door

29. The Right Choice

I've come to believe
When faced with a choice
The right choice 
Is always to choose life
In all things big and small
If you support life
Life will support you

28. The Masterpiece

I saw a carpenter strolling through an art gallery
Studying each painting carefully
Admiring mostly their wooden frames
Proving once again
The beauty we see
Is in the eyes of the masterpiece we behold ourselves to be

27. Mother Mind

My poems seem to come from another mind
Where thoughts and feelings mate and incubate
Before being born as poems
To make known what's grown in my mother mind

26. The Birthday Door

Next year I'll be sixty-five
And chances are I'll still be alive
To pass through that special birthday door
Into a seniors' world ready to explore
To discover
To learn
To grow
To know
Until it's time to step through another door
And follow all those who have gone through before

25. Dementia of a Social Kind

It's called the long goodbye
When our memories fade to black
Before we die
A fearsome prospect to say the least
But when it comes to our common memory
Our history
Most prefer a mystery
We view dementia of a personal kind as terrifying
But dementia of a social kind
As hardly worth noticing
We chuckle at forgetful elders
Who repeat themselves 
But fail to see the joke
When history does the same
Over and over again
I guess the laugh's on us

24. Destiny's Destination

If you have a destiny

You have a destination

Where

If you have a calling

You have a caller

Who
Could it be the one waiting for you
At destiny's destination

23. There's Got To Be An Answer

When I was five
It dawned on me I was alive
And one day would die
I wondered why
I've searched for the answer
Long and hard
High and low
Far and wide
Here and there
Anywhere and everywhere
From anyone with a story to tell
Even from a tipping chair
All agree to a beginning
But not between then and the end
So my search goes on
For a new story
To study
To contemplate
To meditate
To cogitate
There's got to be an answer
Maybe I'll find it
After another careful review
Of an ancient tale
But how will I know if it's true
Another question to ponder
For one who believes
A seeker will find
Could that be why we have a mind

22. From Where Our Dragons Come

I once thought we humans are thinking beings
With emotions
But the longer I live
The more I'm inclined to believe
We're emotional beings
Who can think
Feelings permitting
How else to explain
All the things we do and say
That to the rational mind seem insane
Those who study the brain
Claim to have found lizard tracks
Leading to a darker time
When our earliest parents lived in the slime
A troubling thought
For the children of God
Who scoff at the notion
Of a reptile nesting in our brain
But researchers insist it's there
And have given our little lizard an elegant name
Amygdala
The one to blame for the things we do and say
The rational mind deems insane
I guess the eggs in Amy's nest
Are from where our dragons come

21. To Look and Long

I look and long
When I glimpse a loving glance
Or tender touch
Things we once shared
Before the rigid stares
And frigid glares
Now proximate
Not intimate
Winter without warm embrace
Only cold eyes and face
And rare glance
Faintly hinting of past romance
Laying beneath a cloud of snow
Alive or dead I do not know
Perhaps our love again will bloom and grow

20. A Curious Craving

Philosophers ponder body and mind
Theologians parse spirit and soul
Scientists peer into the conscious and unconscious brain
All seeking to explain
The mystery
Of humanity's need to know
But the only thing that's certain so far
Is just how fascinating we are
We even preserved Einstein's brain in a jar
To search for his mind in part of his body
And so our quest goes on
To discover what makes us tick
And maybe even a cure for the sick
There you have it
A tome in a poem
About our curious craving
To know the unknown

19. A Better We

Me
Thee
We
Entwined
Entangled
Emeshed
A conjoined personality
A blended being
Never meant to be
It's time to reclaim our individuality
Our own identity
Trading codependency
For independency
Held together by the common connection
Of a co-created family
Now I'm free to be me
And you to be thee
A better we

18. Middle Night

Middle night
Sleep departs
Thoughts dart and dash
Mind wheels spin muddy rooster tails
Going nowhere fast
Stuck awake
Ignition off
Mind stills
Quiets
Sleep creeps back
Nestles in
Returns

17. The Family Math of 1+1

When I started out
I thought just one would do
Soon there were two
Then more
For a total of four
Kids that is
Gee whiz
Number four now has three
To add to one's three
To add to three's three
Now two has one with thoughts of two
What started out as one plus one
Is closing in on twenty
Counting the four's one plus ones
Some might say that's plenty
But soon the kids of the kids will join in  
With their children
It's not hard to imagine what's in store
There'll be more
Amazing to the one who thought just one would do

16. Strangely Healing

I've got news
There really is a muse
Who inspired the poets of old
How else to explain the sudden urge to write a poem
Something to say

Not well suited to an essay
Better said with metaphor
Part thought
Part feeling
Strangely healing
As mind and heart embrace
And converse in poetry verse

15. Your story

What's your story
You have one
I have one
Everyone has a tale to tell
To make sense 
of our experience
Past, present
And what's yet to be
A prophecy
Not one told by an ancient sage
One told by you
To you
With power
To shape and guide
The story you write on life's page

14. It's not a fair fight

It's an old story
A child delights
Then demands
Then commands
Soon come the fights
Some you win
But it's not a fair fight
The bigger, smarter you
Fights within 
In search of a way to win
Without a little hit
Just the threat of a lonely sit
That leaves you bearing the pain
It's not a fair fight
What to do 
When the child is bigger 
And smarter than you
And still delights
Even with the fights and frights that battle within
An older voice is heard
I had the same delights, fights, frights 
And pains with you
It's an old story with a happy ending

13. Mind Thing

What is this thing we call the mind
Is it the brain we think with and feel with
Or the soul we come with and leave with
Or just a thought with a name
To explain from where it came
A theory of mind
But one thing's for certain
We all have one
I think
Sometimes too much
I think

12. Phantom Echo

A severed relationship
A phantom limb
No longer there
But still wired into my brain
It feels so real
Especially the pain
Oh, the longing to have it back again
In time the phantom fades
Just its echo remains
To remind

11. Family Roots Wall

As I stared into the lense
Trying to look my best
I had a flash before the flash
Caught a glimpse of a time yet to be
My departure
There on a table in front of an altar
A photo of me
The one about to be taken
A portrait in a time frame
Like the ones I've seen at the funerals I've been
On their way to a drawer
On their way to a family roots wall
On display for the future to see
Searching for face parts passed on to them
Look at that nose, those eyes, that chin, that grin
Passed on by me to my children's, children's children
Passed on to me by my father's, father's, fathers
For me that wasn't so very long ago
My great grandfathers were born in the 50s
The 1850s, I mean
A blink of an eye
The click of a shutter
That's me there on that table, that wall
Smiling a little because I'm a little smiler
From a long line of little smilers with big chins
Who did my eyes come from

10. Silhouette Shadows

I'm working on a theory of dreams 
That makes me think they are not what they seem
Strange yet familiar
But they feel so real
Where do they come from
Where do they go
Some are like old friends
Some like familiar foe
Some a bit of both
Some shock
Some shame
Some are just insane
Where do they come from
Where do they go
Many are those who claim to know
It's God speaking some say
He's pointing the way
No, no, comes the counter claim
Dreams come from worries, fears and uncried tears
Perhaps
Perhaps not
Maybe those who mine the brain will strike it rich 
With a new reality show
Who wouldn't watch another's dreams 
With commercials and a proper viewer caution of course
Okay, Okay
Let's get real
The very thing I tell myself when dreams disturb my rest 
With past tears
Future fears
Or longings unfulfilled
Where do they come from
Where do they go
My theory is that dreams
Are nightly thought streams
Flowing without our knowing
Leaving only silhouette shadows
Cast by the dawning light

9. Carnivore Mind

All my life

and it's been quite a long one so far
Boredom has stocked me
Always
Everywhere
The terror of a long line up

A bathroom without a book
A waiting room

What will I feed my carnivore mind
Something

Anything but a hungry mind

But now I'm bored no more
Filled to full and then some
All because of a magic dish 

Filled with thought delights at a finger touch
My iPad
My Boredom Slayer

8. I am an artist and you are, too

One thought impregnates another
Gives birth to an idea the artist makes visible, tangible, audible
Sometimes tastey and aromatic
There are fine arts, language arts, performing arts
And, yes, even industrial, culinary and martial arts
And, of course, the art of arts and crafts
What kind of artist are you
If fame is your game and money your aim
Go ahead and proclaim
I'm an artist
You really are one too
Just like everyone else who takes a breath outside of their mother's womb

7. Love is not nice

I love you she said
And I you he replied
As long as you're nice to me
I'll be nice to you

Agreed
So began a transaction some call love
Which lasts forever
Until he stops being nice to her or she to him

But Love is not nice

Love is kind

Love is patient

Love is not self-seeking
Love keeps no record of wrongs

Love never fails

But transactions do

So be nice to her
Even if she's not nice to you
Love without payback
Expect no return
Love her even if she doesn't love you

6. I am more than my data

I remember a time when I was more than my data

Before when I was a person instead of a product

No more

I remember when I was more than my likes and dislikes

When I was more than what I read and watched

Or bought at a store

No more

What happened I asked

That's easy came the reply

Big Data gave us free toys

And giggled
I mean googled all the way to the bank

Where Rumpelstiltskin's kin spin our data into gold
Beware
If offered a free product
You are the product
Big Data made it so

5. MIA Elders

Where have all the elders gone
You won't find them among the MIA's resting in entertainment nests
Nibbling on pickled eggs
Watching and waiting
Waiting for what you ask
Don't ask
You wouldn't like it
No nest or mummied eggs for me, thanks
I'd rather keep flying until it's time to fall from the sky
So where have all the elders gone
Look and listen for the Action

4. An urn by another name

They call it heaven

Do what you want
When you want
How you want
If you want

I call it hell

No purpose
No reason
Save one
To have fun

You 've earned it
I'm told

You're old

Relax
Retire
Have fun

Not me, Bud

Death comes soon enough

Why rush into its sticky embrace
By becoming a shelf ornament
Or an urn by another name
I fancy myself as Alice's white rabbit

Where shall I begin
I shall begin at the beginning of each new day
For as long as there are days for me