Warning: Enemies Around
Who is there to fear?
The man who knows
all the answers
and yet is not
prostrate
with awe and trembling,
but behaves as if
nothing had happened.
He is the one to fear.
He is the enemy.
Enemies around.
Enemies abound.
The Monkey Mind
The monkey mind
is never still.
There is no way
to bind its will.
It wanders here
and wanders there,
from mood to mood,
from fear to fear.
March Hunch
Melting flowers
in the snow
show me
spring is near.
Winter Night in March
The wind
winces and whistles
thru the thistles
of the green tree.
Inside it is
warm and cozy,
and the wind
hardly threatens
me, or so I think,
and sleep a wink.
Frog Crossing
The sign says:
"Frog Crossing".
I stop.
I wait an hour.
No frog.
Making Poems
Making poems
is a monstrous thing
while wars go on.
Isn't it
better
to break the rifle
and dent symbolically
the nuclear missile cone?
Who dare go that far?
This could get
out of hand.
And so I make poems,
good, bad, or indifferent,
and the military re-tools.
Mark Twain Tonight
The truth infiltrated
so many myths
it seemed itself
to be mythic.
"Where is the Lord
that I might worship him?",
asked Mark Twain.
It is our custom
to regard colored people
as inferior,
and to justify our wars
with high ideals.
The truth was not found
in the marketplace,
nor in the village church.
It was hidden, absconded.
Or so it seemed.
So "I made Satan the hero"
in my new myth,
says Mark Twain.
But "The War Prayer",
proving the folly of war
where we pray for protection
of ours by killing theirs,
was a last triumph.
God forgave Satan
when that was published.
For A Lady
When I was young
and precipitous
in my zeal for her
blondness and bosoms,
I said,
"I will love you
even when you are
old and decrepit.
Now I'm old and decrepit,
and nobody gives us
a second glance,
and we hold gnarled hands.
The Divine Bias
God has a bias for the best,
but shows no prejudice.
The rest may go their way,
as chaff he blows away.
But who says what is best,
in this our human nest?
Is the peak experience
to love unselfishly,
or to be laid repeatedly?
In fact, I fall short on both,
and mediocrity isn't sought
or coupons bought
on life's resume...
Pray for me;
and I will pray for thee.
The good will shine
like suns, like stars,
for all eternity.
Love! Ignore the rest.
All the rest is contumely.