78. Heartbroken

When his heart was broken
It cracked open
The pain was so intense and immense
His tears fell like rain
They poured once again
When he saw the dark stains his heart contained
With his core revealed
He bowed down and kneeled
Until his brokenness was healed
So he could stand strong once more
Better than before
Still sore
The pain remains
To cleanse the stains

77. Laughter

After our birth
We're greeted with laughter
Welcome to planet earth
When dying there's crying
As we await our return
To the place from where we came
Where life and death are both the same
And share a common name
A joyful word that rhymes with hereafter
Often heard when family and friends
Gather to celebrate our life on earth
After our departure

76. Ordinary Day

Dart
Dash
Strive
Drive
Alive
Survive
Just another day
Ordinary in every way

75. Just Now

Hush

What's the rush

Slow the pace

Life's not a race

Amble a while

No need to scramble just now
Smile

No threat

No need to fret just now

Mosey along

Enjoy a song

Slow dancing will do just fine

Perhaps with a sip of wine

No need to speed just now
Breath

Ease off the throttle

Touch the brake

Glide

Slide

Rest
Reset

Refresh 
Take a break

Until it's time again to ride

74. Tippy Toes

In pursuit of happiness
The boy lost his way
By following what others had to say
When grown
The man found the unknown
Happy isn't really real
Just a fleeting fun feeling
Like the one that comes
When playing with a toy
A mirage that comes and goes on tippy toes
An imposter masquerading as joy
Exquisitely memorable
Nearly ethereal
But oh
Ever so ephemeral
Like a rainbow's pot of gold

73. On Condition

In the beginning
Attraction
Passion
Obsession
Compulsion
In the end
Aversion
Revulsion
Convulsion
Expulsion
Such is love on condition

72. Eternal

My link to the past
My hope for the future
My anchor to the present
My family
Paternal
Maternal
Eternal

71. The Watcher Within

Who is the I in me

The watcher within
The one aware when
My mind wonders
Here, there and everywhere
Who with gentle breath and tender touch
Stills my mind and guides me back to now
Call the I what you will
The East's suffering self
Or the West's sentient soul
Either way
Does being mindful really have the power
As some say
To make us whole
If we learn to pay attention
And intentionally inhabit each moment of the day
Instead of letting our minds stray
And wander away

70. Mystically Magical

Spiritual
A word everyone uses
A woolly word which often confuses
But what does it mean
If it can't be seen
Here's a hint
Spiritual is the opposite of material
Immaterial which casts a glint
That can only be glimpsed with a squint
When visible
The religious call it a miracle
The mystics mumble magical
The physicists proudly remark
Something's there
But it's dark
Without the light
Their blind minds depend for sight
On the mathematical
Perhaps just another word for spiritual

69. Woo Woo

Sixty-eight and waiting
No sign of sixty-nine
I listen for that silent voice within
But it's
Hesitating
I sense there's been a hidden mating
My expectant mind anticipating
The birth of a new poem
Surprise, surprise
It just arrived
It's alive and knows it's a poem
Do I dare believe
That it and the first sixty-eight
Are somehow like my children
Self aware
Maybe I do
Woo woo

68. Missing Thing

What's real
What's not
Is reality just objective physicality
Or is it really shared subjectivity
If you see what I see
And we agree
It's real
If you sense what I sense
And we have consensus
It's real
Now imagine an earth without you and me
Or any of our kind
With a mind inclined to find
Would the ground and all around cease to be
Or would the only thing missing be
What we call reality

67. Just A Thought

A thoughtful thinker once proclaimed

I think therefore I am

If he meant I am my thoughts

I think not

Is the sun only its light beams

Are you and I only our thought streams

I think not

A thought is just a thought

It's neither you nor me

A thought at best is a mirror reflection of reality

At worst pure fantasy

66. Night Sky

I'm amazed each time I gaze

Upon the patterned points of light
Scattered in the sky at night
What a sight

What a delight
I wonder

Am I just a point of life
On a point of light
In another's night sky
I wonder
Will I find out
When I dim and die
I wonder

66. Sleeptime

His penned chicken mind
Escapes each night
To delight in another world of free range dreams
Until captured by morning's light
And returned to its plight on the production line
To labour again
Until the sweet freedom of sleeptime

65. Forbidden Zone

Sometimes he finds his mind

Wondering in a forbidden zone

Nibbling on past tears and future fears

Then regurgitating what it just ate

Like a pet dog he once knew

With an appetite for its own puke and poo

He now confines his mind to dining on the present time

Bon Appetit

64. Heart Warming

Years ago she turned to ice
Her heart frozen shut

Then one day he sensed a melt
But it wasn't her heart he felt
It was his
Warming
Thawing
Drawing
Wooing him to warm her heart too

63. Breaking Free

It's been said you can't change what you don't understand

It takes much more than a simple command

To resist a habit's demand

Could there really be such a thing

As an addiction gene

Or are harming habits better explained by the disease meme

Kind of an updated version of a demon's scheme

To understand a life with a slavery theme

To find the key to breaking free

62. Legacy of Intensity

No doubt about it
I have a propensity for intensity
I've been called extreme
Sometimes even a little bit mean
Never serene
Always obedient to the dictate of a demanding gene
A family trait
Our legacy of intensity
Our inherited power source
Our renewable energy resource

61. Emergence

In the beginning
Emergence
Awakening
Awareness
Attraction
Connection
Collection
Realization
In the end
Transcendence
Asleep
Amen

60. Inside Voice

Now that I'm sixty five
Am I going to age like a fine wine
Or wither like a vine leaf in winter time
Some say the genes decide
Kind of like a slow suicide
Not so says the still small voice inside
Biology will have its say
But not whether I age or rot
The choice is mine
To be the wine
Or a leaf fallen from the vine

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

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