Filling The Void: Four of my poems in this anthology by Jonathan MS Pearce

For any of you interested in purchasing the ebook version of this anthology, in which four of my poems are included, here is the Amazon Canada link. In other jurisdictions, your own local Amazon will give you the details. Paperback in about a month or so.


http://www.amazon.ca/Filling-Void-Selection-Humanist-Atheist-ebook/dp/B01BNNY62A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1455364835&sr=8-2&keywords=filling+the+void

A Walk On The Weird Side: Reality Jumping

It is easier to have a routine,
but easy is an ugly word,
and my life has never
been routine.

Walking the dog
through snow-clogged lanes,
I dance between
Northern Ontario,
and the mountains
above Srinagar.
Treading lightly,
I walk through the pines
of Desierto de los Leones,
above Mexico City,
and walk the treeline
at Popocatépetl,
stunned at being,
amazed at being here,
overwhelmed at being here, now.

Dog and I return,
through our own pines,
and check the bird feeders.
A time lurch,
and I am on the verandah
at the Asa Wright Centre
in Trinidad,
watching the birds feeding:
neon colours on wings.
Glitch...and I silently watch
a dancing peacock
in Yala National Park,
in Sri Lanka,
only a kilometre away
from a beach where waves break
in an ocean that stretches
to Antarctica.

Inside, with fresh coffee,
I am shifted to a hotel
on the ski slopes of
Ceausescu’s Romania,
drinking a cappuccino
the taste of which 
I shall never forget.

It is easier to have a routine,
to stay focussed on the present,
but easy was never the name
of the highways
upon which I have travelled.

Gallery/Self Portrait

This is the frame:
Soft semi-tropical night,
clear, star-speckled,
a magical backdrop
for a platinum moon as large as a dream;
a muted band plays in a distance
that is punctuated by gentle laughter.
The song is Stoloff: Moonglow/Theme from “Picnic”.

This is the picture:
Small boy, dressed in old worn clothes.
Poor boy, but in a caring family
where life was no more
than subsistence, leavened by love.

This is the wall upon which the picture hangs:
Flags on battlements, crises, pain.
False prophets, monsters, sterile plains.
Struggle, anguish, loss, and fear.
Knowledge, travel, learning, growing.
Love, and the beginning of understanding.
Peace, with tranquillity on the top of a hill,
overlooking a harbour
on the North Atlantic.

Light Noise

I feel if I could, 
suddenly and completely,
engage
with this Cosmic Aum,
I would.

If I focus deep enough
to hear harmonic
variations,
Mandelbrot would explain
All.

It is always there:
a friend, confidant, co-conspirator,
dancing life’s dance
with you
as partner.

The high hissing cacaphony
of frequencies only seen
within your mind:
observing? controlling?
created? sentient?

As individual as fingerprints,
does this chorus
sing just for you,
or does it rejoice,
triumphantly,
in a place beyond Time?

The Illustrations

Aging is that biological evil
we all must bear 
as we are swept along
with the arrow of time.

Knowledge comes with the journey:
we are all damaged and worn
by life, and the people and events
contributing to, and molding, that life.

We all bear our grotesque tattoos,
some hidden, some blatantly obvious,
and others interpret only those illustrations
they can see through the haze,
the light, the pain,
of their own picture-books.

We hobble on towards an end
that we either accept as natural,
or, girded by ancient superstition,
embrace as our just reward
for a good life, well lived.

We suffer, yet within that pain
there shines a light of joy,
engraving an epitaph
that will continue to glow
long after our illustrations
have returned to star dust.