59. Hard Rock Healing

Poetry is hard rock candy
Flavour to savour
To tuck and suck
Not to crush and chew in a rush
A taste experience
A treat not meat
A sweet to soothe an aching soul
A medicine to make it whole
Hard rock healing

58. Adversity

Are you and I really who we think we are
Or are we creations
Of our imaginations
Simply figmentations
Projections in our own reality show
Filled with characters who come and go
None of whom we really know
Until adversity strikes to gift us all
With insight into whom we really are
By whether we choose to stand and fight
Or bow down and crawl

57. Definitely Devine

Instant love
From above
Or from the oxytocin within
In a trance at first glance
Amazed by each child of romance
First there were four
From them came eight more
Soon to be a total of nine
All children of mine
Instant everlasting love each time
Definitely Divine

56. Hints That Convince

Human beings are pattern recognition machines
Patterns here
Patterns there
Patterns everywhere
What do they mean
Are they promises
Are they warnings
Are they predicting the unforeseen
Look at those numbers
Those stars
Those cards
Those hints
That convince of conspiracy
Leaves in a cup of tea
Who's that hiding in the bread mould
Could it be the God of old
Is that His face staring at me
Who else could it be
Maybe His mother Mary
Three good things in a row
On a winning streak
Don't change your lucky socks
Don't change your lucky shoes
Don't change your lucky anything
Patterns here
Patterns there
Patterns everywhere
Intuitions

Premonitions
Superstitions
Apparitions
All manifestations of a beautiful mind's obsession
With pattern recognition

55. Agency

I am who I am today
Because of each and every choice
I've made along the way
My will is free
No matter how hard or easy
My life is my responsibility
Choice is just another word for agency

54. Stillness

My mind imposes a stillness on a universe in motion
A stillness that's just an illusion
A source of confusion
For a mind that beholds creature shapes in the clouds
Thinking it strange when things change
Wrapping them in death shrouds
Forgetting that life is neither still nor a frame in a film
But a dramatic motion picture show
Watched by the observer within
Who sees in everything
A beginning, a middle and end

53. Purpose

Ever since I can remember
I have had a sense of purpose
No surprise there
But lately I've been sensing
A purpose within a purpose
The purpose to have a purpose
Could it be
No purpose
No meaning
No me
Now that's a surprise
Do I really need a purpose to be

52. Wonder Child

It all began billions of years ago or so
There's billions more or so to go
Now is just a point in time
Between the beginning and the end
To wonder why and comprehend
My children tease
I think too much
But wondering gives pleasure
Enriching the child in me with treasure

51. Slow

How fast is slow
I do not know
Quick, hurry, rush
Dawdle, waddle, crawl
Clock tick tock
Seconds, minutes, hours
Fresh milk sours
Green grass grows
Slow or fast
Only the observer knows

50. Remember When

Sometimes I look back to remember when
Sometimes I start when it all began
There's pleasure, pride and pain
As I recount each stage along the way
When my thoughts return to now
Somehow I'm able to resist the temptation
To halt or step back
Somehow this simple act of remembering
Keeps me moving forward and on track

49. Vaguely Visible

Wrapped in religion by Paul
Packed in politics by Rome et al.
Hijacked by kingly crusaders
Imprisoned by the priestly beasts of inquisition
Now obscured by the pulpit politician
Vaguely visible
But still as always
The giver of life
Once dead
Then raised alive
The light of the world
Who speaks the simple truth of love
To both the heart and the head

48. Poem Power

Like a combustion engine
A poem's power
Comes from the compression of expression
A few words combined
Confined
Fusing meaning and emotion
Into an energy form
Known as a poem

47. Firm Ground

A shake
A quake
Wide awake
Up
Down
Round and round
Must find firm ground
None found
My tremors now shake the ground
Goodbye illusory security
Welcome uncertain stability
Where up meets down

46. Imagine

Imagine if you can
The processing power
Of the hundred billion neuron human brain
Which turned hunters and gatherers
Into space travelers
Now imagine if you can
The processing power
Of humanity's seven billion hundred billion neuron brains
Tethered together

Unravelling each mystery
Until the end of history
When one by one
We become time travellers when we enter eternity
Now imagine that if you can

46. Does it Really Matter

Could it be that consciousness
Is a property of matter's complexity
Emerging from the physical interaction of material reality
It could be according to the theory of complexity
Or could it be that consciousness
Is simply a non-material reality
Just another word for spirituality
A psychic property of the singularity
But then again does it really matter
Maybe
Maybe not
I need to give it more thought

45. Bala and I

To go or not to go to TRU

Here's what I advise, my grandson

To thine own self be true

Set out on the grand journey life's prepared for you 

Travel swift and light

And keep in sight

The Guide within

Who will hold you on course

To the very end

Where Bala and I will be waiting for you

44. Poetry for Me and My Posterity

All my working life
I've written for audiences both large and small
But my poetry
I write for me
And perhaps one or two of my posterity
Whom after I'm long gone
May take an interest in their ancestry

43. Written in Eternity

When I look back to a time before there was a me
Before the beginning of my story
I wonder about a future time when I'll cease to be
Will my story end in uncertainty
Hidden in the mystery of illusive reality
Or will my epilogue be written in eternity
And depend upon my chosen theology
The reason I labour to choose it wisely

42. Poetic Genetics

Each word in a poem
Is like a gene in a chromosome
Together they form a life all of its own
Change a word or two
And the life form will change too

41. The Scent of a Poem

For me, the emergence of an impending poem
Is signalled by a sudden impression
Accompanied by a thought
A feeling
A rhythm
A rhyme
A meaning
A message
A search for words
Each carefully chosen
Then sculpted and polished one by one
Until like flower petals they blossom into a poem
Emitting a scent all of its own
Intensely personal
Yet somehow universal

40. It'll pass

It'll pass, she said
Fighting back tears
A widow living alone for more than 10 years
Now in failing health
Grieving yet another loss
An aging, ailing mother
Depending on the support of me and my brother
Fulfilling the promise we made to our long dead father
We'll take care of our mother and you're wife 
For the rest of her life

39. One Of Those Talks

It was one of those talks between a father and son
About the near and distant past
About our genealogy
One comment stood out above the rest
Giving voice to a thought that until then I hadn't expressed
Our shared genes, my son, can push us forward or hold us back
But our shared values will pull us into the future and keep us on track

38. Power's Insistence

Force's demand always meets with resistance
But nothing and no one can resist
The persistence of power's insistence
When force meets power
Force gives way
As we learned from Gandhi, Mandela and MLK
The same truth taught by the one who showed us the Way
A lesson I need to remember
Whenever force demands I do something its way

37. Deeply satisfying

My quest began with a question
Then a contemplation
An exploration
An explanation
An inspiration
A revelation
A transformation
A manifestation
A deep satisfaction
Next question, please

36. When I Met Me

I met me when I asked myself
What are the most precious objects I possess
Whom do I want most to bless and impress
What do I want most to do and hope to be
My answers introduced myself to me
A most surprising self-discovery