The Join

can you see the join?

where ego meets altruism?

wisdom collides with longing?

right here?

right now?

in these very words?

in your very reading of these words?

were there no join

there would be no poem

no writer

no you to read it.

going nowhere

going nowhere

coming from nowhere

better sit still

while the Earth spins

sun rises, sun sets

day then night then day

and seasons come and go

people born, age, die

born

better sit still

going nowhere

and everywhere is nowhere

What exists, doesn't

 what exists, doesn't

can't you see?

can't you see

that you don't see?

that what you see

isn't?

how can we communicate

what all we perceive

is unreal

momentary

gone already

replaced with another unreality

and so on

ad infinitum?

Hideaway

Poetry should be neither seen nor heard

but read, if at all, in an attic or cubby-hole

like a secret addiction

and poets should hideaway

lest anyone discover their uniquely

bizarre habit.

Reactionary Mind

my body reacts against healthy eating

sixty years of culture

pushing junk down my throat

resists the attempt

to reacquant my body with food

that nurtures me

the mind that controls me

filled with a thousand experiences

of caramel wafers and endless snacks

will not countenance rebellion

from the wishy-washy lets-get-healthy

new kid on the block

even though he's been on the block

for twenty years or more.

eat junk and die satisfied it says

only instant gratification matters

but tonight and tomorrow

I'll try again

La Plus Ca Change

when I was a kid in Hamilton

in the late 60s and early 70s

I'd go down the town centre.

outside the pubs

and at the bottom cross

old guys would hang around

chatting, smoking, caps on

or bald heads shining.

They all looked the same to me.

Meanwhile my older brothers and their friends

were in and around the clothes shops

and especially the record shops

looking cool

in their flairs, full-length leather coats,

long hair and fancy heeled boots

now I go down the town centre

see the same old guys

standing outside the traditional pubs

and lingering at the bottom cross

passing the time of day

but they can 't be the same old guys

they'd be over a hundred now

it's the once young guys

the long-haired louts

touting Hendrix, Beatles, and Led Zep albums

in their arms to impress the girls - and their mates

now they've become the old guys

right down to the cloth caps

who'd have thought that

in the revolutionary year

of 1968?

The Truth about Green Tea

 

it has nothing to do with tea

the leaves

the bush

the time of the picking

the storage

being kept in airtight packs

it's in the first sip

the warmth of the ceramic cup

as your fingers spread round it

the first taste

the space between sips

the silence of experience

the sense of disappointment

when there's no sip left

the acceptance that tea has gone

the gratitude for being alive

able to experience all this.