Milliways* table 31

all things considered

including the sky, the night 

the turn arounds - it 

all has been a good 

ride. he said during 

the transformation 

from man to energy 

it took a few life times 

one too many to live

out: still the variants 

of life: the equilibrium

felt right: at each turn 

the lessons piled high 

such tolerance a learnt 

science of tenacity and 

someone lookin out 

for him waiting for -

at the table on the left 

* Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Douglas Adams 

 

structural integrity

Each teardrop has a life 

A slow life: a soldier’s

Life: ready at will 

Of another cause 

This pain: that love 

Even joy calls for such tensile strength 

Known for the destruction 

It gives: a good marine 

First in battle: last

Thanked.  

The Topography of Tears *

there’s probably an epic battle 

for our existence being played 

out leagues under the very water 

we swim in. i enjoy the bubbles 

my hands create as each enters

as they float and descend. then 

escape slow

into the hydrogen and oxygen 

each disperses: enters another 

form of creation. how many 

creations surrounded him that 

day before the sun set: each glancing 

from the shallows of the ocean 

coffee cup in hand: how the moon 

extended: how high tea was served 

it all etches, oxidizes movements 

how gray his hair is getting i want to say 

how still his eyes are becoming 

there's more but my eyes water 

escape slowly 

The Topography of Tears : Rose Lynn Fisher 

blatant

is it best to think of things out in the open

right upfront and center - the old west had 

it right - at noon problems are resolved then 

a beer or a box - perhaps that’s all blatant

better to couch things - with a good rerun of

whatever it was that lurked in our sleep - so 

real. More real than what the day has offered 

a beer or a box - it is all so plain & blatant 

in a car the radio on or better alexa with all 

her thoughts and suggestions and such - we 

don't need to think more. just ask the need 

a beer or a box - a suggestion: all blatant 

is it best to think of things out in the open? 

it's fantasy... 

terrible tttttttttttttttttt

Going against the current has never been my motto

Using the current is more my speed - but where is it 

I go? Like that shell silverstein that haunts me since 

I first met his words - his ickles and pickles and tickle 

Me too - and those damm pancakes - that damm middle

Good but not good enough - close but no brass ring or 

Unicorn - and I’m sick - sick of it all: this current of time 

Is too long - the constant ticks and taps and the nowhere 

Has never been mine to give . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Gibran Khalil Gibran : جبران خليل جبرا

Having found love and put it aside

As one sets flour to rise: I took upon

Me a book. A heavy book with many 

Pages and many thoughts I had not yet 

Made my own. It had lived on a shelf

quietly among the yogis: an author 

Long since dead: cradled by reality 

I scan his lines and wish them my own 

Pay tribute as only another poet can 

I share with a heavy heart his words 

Of death, love, truth, personified by a new abyss 

Fear*

Of zeros and ones: in a moment death 

Will be at my bedside - and I hope to meet 

It with a welcome hand and a joyful tear 

In my eyes - having read what I have read

Fear: A Poem by Gibran Khalil Gibran 

Sutra

I’ve read the works of plato 

And I’m tired of the duality 

His spirit split from body and self 

His darkness for others and his light 

For those who share descarte’s duel 

What a sight to see such nonsense 

The mind and the darkness of the body 

The soul lurking about - a freudian slip

A lewdness commanded by man to exclude 

Tired of the sermons: of the love and hate

On the split that must occur - let’s go east 

To roam a wall made entirely of earth 

Composed as it is - an immersion of dimensions 

our fundamental responsibility

Still miss 

you a bit 

Btwn the night and day 

There’s times

 I can’t escape 

Try as I may - edge towards 

The cliff 

 I stand and sit and wait 

To dissipate into the blue beyond 

It’s not a bad feeling: not sad not at all 

Like waiting for the sunrise or the sunset 

We’ve done them both - so there’s no real need 

Not at our age - at our age there is only time in buckets 

And a world to seek and sometimes write about the joy 

crescent shape

btwn the devil and the deep blue sea

 

the moon takes shapes: inclusive as

it won't matter if i phase out to what

is greater: i do not mind at all. but if

 

if doesn't come to pass then there is

texas - and it’s warm weather & some

times nice hospitality: others not so

 

still 

 

btwn the devil and the deep blue sea  

 

the piano and the beats and the tuba 

in the background: the lyrics that feed 

right in: to a gray dove waiting as it 

it always does when there's too much 

yet not enough wind to set sail across 

another ocean: aforgivenessfulloftrust

 

still 

shreevatsa

so i've given up and made him a perch

he comes and sits and pecks. the screen 

so haphazardly set to stop this mad bird 

is now his resting place. so he can sit &

peck. and peck he does. a way of living 

for him and me. a part of me loves him 

a part of me wants him to stop. the bird 

house is free of seeds - the squirrels see 

to it that it all scatters to the grounds - 

the little finches cannot compete - two 

squirrels have come to set the stage for 

the morning play. they will go and i'll 

 

remain, our action - is just what we do

this is our making. multiplication and 

addition is the nature of our mind. our 

loss

Scileann fíon fírinne

what occurs when pesto and noodles and sangrias come to play

discourse of years, people who passed, people who stayed, we 

plan for a party where we would invite all our youth: so many 

years collapsing into each other. one more funeral to plan for

used to be we planned for showers for babies and long gowns 

she was there. and i was drunk. and i got married. two months 

before hers i caused a split: he was at his truck and I said hey 

but it wasn’t her - then it was her - then they weren’t - it was 

enough to cause her to stop - a truck and him and a not her 

she understood me as she understands now - how it all seems 

to be going so fast - heading into a direction we have no say 

sleep is always good as is a good bottle of wine - a few laughs 

a few tears and many promises of how it all does not matter 

and how it all does 

ontology

i wonder what would happen if . . . .

i became involved in my life? actual

and true - not thought of tomorrow 

or yesterday - how if A was played 

then it follows B and C and such 

all in all a bad chess game never 

executed. i spend so much thought 

on A that the days are gone. and i 

am left with another day & another 

game. how odd the world we live in 

it is true when it is said:  hunger one

problem: no hunger hundreds of - till

we are left with no more time and no

more soup - not even thought of being 

control above genes

operating from fear

in a known factor 

it stems from the manure 

fed into by media & news 

and parents and educators 

all meaning well to live 

it leaves us blind to thought 

thought already in streams 

we feed on it, we live in it 

we dream of it - this fear 

prolonged by generations 

in our genetics.* this junk 

we argue: it is fight or flight 

in truth it is neither. it is fear

a simple stream of fear we 

collected and renamed to fit 

love, safety, a dull existential 

existence of what kafka wrote 

when he was a vermin**

*Epigenetics and the New Science of Thriving in Autism: How the Parents' and the Caregivers’ Expectations Directly Affects the Autistic Child's Ability to Thrive: Rajalakshmi Kandaswamy

**The Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung): Franz Kafka

don'tchakno*

 in snippets he seems so normal 

thousands of pictures and i can 

convince myself he led a normal 

life - like all young men do: except 

                              he hasn't - inbetweenthesnippets 

                    is where he exists: my arms are proof 

          teethmarks, nail marks. clumps of hair 

taken off and part of me wants to erase 

                    it all and part of me is in awe 

                                             how - one moment

                              it has all gone so fast

*don't cha kno: Bobby's World by Howie Mandel

                                    

                                                  

obliquity

I don’t like it at all

How dark it gets so 

Soon - it’s creepy 

Enough to spy into 

A life that was once 

Mine - I’ll go mad 

In no time if I don’t 

Stop - I’ve broken 

My rule now twice 

Only once in a day 

I swore to myself 

A glimpse of happiness 

And her other companions 

And perhaps a glimpse 

Of more - or less or what 

Will set me free or keep me