Remembrance Day

is not

about remembering.

It is being seen

remembering,

which is not the same,

especially when

formality sets in,

and ceremony rates

the display more

important than

the remembering.

I and my dead

remember

mutually

at odd times

and anniversaries,

place a flower

occasionally upon

the heart's mantelpiece

and go about our lives.

This public wallow

is for politicians

and their like,

a hoarding for

advertisement,

lying for gain.

To a Descendant Reading My Poems

Looking for me?
I posed for posterity.
I used words to cover my tracks.
Did my sincerity
sufficiently conceal my truth?

Can you deduce what I was then
from idiosyncratic verses
and a few ambiguous titles?
Can you deduce what I am now
from what you have deduced from then?

Is that too much like sifting ancient light
to find a long-gone distant star?

Then, I was X (I marked my spot)
modified by youth and age and vanity
and love and suffering and indifference.
Now, I am X modified by my purposes,
as you are Y trapped in your own contexts.

Where X equals pure Me,

and Y equals pure You,

there is nothing stands between us,
only time.

(Happy Birthday Grandpa xxx)

Jump

Logic leads to paradox,
And only intuition
Leaps that wall
Leaving the paradoxes
Strewn about the floor while it
Gulps fresher air.

Not To Be Outdone

Outstep the deadly dominance dance,
Outplay the power game,
Outstare the calculating glance,
Outspan the fingered fame.

Outspan the fingered hand of fame,
Outbid the random chance,
Outburn the double candle flame,
Outstep the dominance dance.

Are You Listening?

Paying attention
one to another
lights us up
blows the breath of life
up our noses.

Being dead
doesn't mean
we've gone away.
It merely means
we're paying attention
to something else.

Forward

The poet's own introduction to a volume he titled "Poet In A Hurry" - a chronological collection of his poems.

Forgiveness

Seems apt to post this again...upon the death of Margaret Thatcher

A curtain corner raised,
I witnessed Jews,
enlightened since their passage
through the Auschwitz ovens,
rescuing former camp guards
from the stinking pits
remorse had dug for them.

I bring it to your attention
you bombers, you famine makers,
you adjusters of populations.
These children you kill
might learn, by this light,
a love which, brought to bear,
could drive you screaming mad.

Two Trees

Two trees in the garden,
rowan side by side with oak.

They have grown together,
roots inextricably twined,
branches so interlaced
the proper season seems to produce

the berried oak,
the acorned rowan,

the shield each other from the wind
and share the rain. At a lost limb
the phantom fingers of the amputee
still feel the itch of the other's
shivering proximity.

His rising sap inflames
her bright capillaries.

She sheds her crimson benison
around his feet. He feeds her acorns.

Each brings the other to perfection-
perfect spirit of tree
which occupies the space of both,
oakrowan, rowanoak.

Forgiveness

A curtain corner raised,
I witnessed Jews,
enlightened since their passage
through the Auschwitz ovens,
rescuing former camp guards
from the stinking pits
remorse had dug for them.

I bring it to your attention
you bombers, you famine makers,
you adjusters of populations.
These children you kill
might learn, by this light,
a love which, brought to bear,
could drive you screaming mad.

Flu

The small sad noise within my bed, I found,

Was breath exhaled against the chest's congestion,

Like a baby wailing in the distant darkness;

Baby-wail among the great cetaceans

Playing, flying, gliding the Arctic deeps,

Laying the grids of their geographies,

Suckling their calves upon the wing, and singing.

Some of the predators above, who probe

The heaving waters with their tracking ears,

Think it a sad song. They should know, who are

Of the virus that has made this teardrop earth

The saddest jewel in the galaxy.

And I, back to my sullen sheets, back to

The feral, viral homunculus fastened,

Battening on my back,

And the baby weeping in the my breast.