The Nature of the Beast

Underneath 
the glossy veneer 
     of attitude, 
the cracks, 
wrought 
by imposed 
self-doubt, 
g   r  o   w     w   i   d   e   r.

The anger, 
long hidden 
by sadness 
and confusion, 
g r o w s:
the cancer 
infests 
yet another 
young
s        
 o     
  u  
    l.

Shelter

She
sits quietly,
near the window,
eyes nervously
tracking
remembered pain.

She 
does not know
where
she will go
when 
frugal municipal funds
force closure
on her shelter.

She
still believes
if she had tried
harder,
if she were 
a better person,
he would never
have hurt her.

Demarara Flow

A kaleidoscope of colour and sound:
here, a grove of bamboo poles
waving strips of bright cloth
call for the blessing of revered
and ancient Gods
on an East Indian wedding;
there, the explosion of Stabroek Market
scatters vendors’ stalls across
the old Dutch square.

Papaws and mangoes vie
with books, tee-shirts,
music tapes and CDs:
the sound of Bollywood
competes culturally with
urgent soca and hip-hop
as stall-owners musically flaunt
their ethnic roots.

Beyond the Clock Tower 
the Demerara flows in muddy splendour
patiently supporting 
motley bum-boats, freighters,
fishing boats, and
the occasional Amerindian dugout.
The ghosts of the Jonestown dead
wander here, betrayed
by their leader’s selfish view
of Heaven.

The Seawall protects this small city,
where a system of dykes,
and drainage ditches
return high tide seepage,
the skill of the Dutch founders
still evident today.
With wooden buildings,
and gun-carrying diamond miners,
this frontier town offers temporary shelter
from the encroaching, and pervasive jungle,
that waits just miles away.


As custodians of this beautiful,
resource-rich country,
these descendants of African slaves,
of indentured East Indians,
have blended their collective experience
into unique forms of politics,
art, music, cuisine,
and a melodic language
that baffles and delights
the foreign ear.
Part Caribbean, part South American,
these capable people
take the best of both worlds,
and make it unmistakeably
their own.

Diamonds in the Gutter

Smiles flashing,
like memories 
of some distant sun,
they pursue
the soccer ball
with feral glee.

Their communication
is joyous,
a staccato burst,
an ethnic melange
born of the urgency
of the streets.

They are aware,
but do not see
the syringes, condoms,
empty bottles;
an alternate reality
from another world.

Dealers, junkies, 
pros, and winos:
all known and greeted equally
by these small,
energetic 
dreams of tomorrow.

“There’s someone in my head, but it’s not me”*

HMCS Bonaventure, 1966,
off Montevideo,
alone on a darkened flight deck
watching stars cascade
into a southern sea.

Bergen, 1963,
standing on Mount Fløyen,
amazed by the tiny city below,
gazing down the fjord,
protected by green hills.

Srinigar, 1986,
the shikara driver
poled his craft slowly
along the quiet water streets
beneath the bowing chinar trees.

Flying over the Alps, 1980,
proud, iconic Matterhorn
not far beneath our wings:
mountain sentinels fearlessly protecting
small verdant Switzerland.

Valetta, Malta, 1985,
old fortifications framing
the perfect harbour
rimmed with small boats,
talismanic eyes painted on their bows.

Rishikesh, upper Ganges, 1997,
with the scent of local charas
providing an olfactory mantra
for pilgrims off-loading bad karma
in the holy river.

Greyhavens, Jeddore Harbour,2016,
the old man and his beagle
listen to the birds in the pines,
sensing other horizons, shimmering,
just a reality away.

* Brain Damage, by Pink Floyd

Ruminations On The Planck Epoch

“In physical cosmology, the Planck epoch (or Planck era), named after Max Planck, is the earliest period of time in the history of the universe, from zero to approximately 10-43 seconds (Planck time), during which, it is believed, quantum effects of gravity were significant. One could also say that it is the earliest moment in time, as the Planck time is perhaps the shortest possible interval of time, and the Planck epoch lasted only this brief instant.” ~Wikipedia




We wander, confused, through our lives,
involved, concerned, and seeking.
We hope for clarity, and wisdom,
but struggle with depression,
and doubt.

So much is beyond our feeble understanding
that we feel inadequate, and lost.
We work for routine, to carry us forward,
and to provide a solid foundation
for dreams.

Our lives seem to stretch to forever,
but a chaotic and random universe
constantly surprises, and defies planning,
and often proves how brief, how flickering,
is our passage.

Considering all that happened 
in the brevity of the Planck epoch,
our lives seem eternal,
and our accomplishments
are mundane.

Given the vast timeline of our lives,
we must conquer chaotic expansion,
and focus, not on the Planck constant,
but on each fleeting moment
that remains.

The Mirror

Come my friends, and gather round, 
a hidden window I have found: 
we'll throw the curtains open wide, 
and we shall view the folk outside.

What people are these who mock and sneer, 
and hold their noses high; 
who laugh, and point, and gawk, and jeer, 
when a beggar passes by?

What creatures are these who act so sad, 
who shake their heads in wonder; 
who watch a friend in trouble, glad 
to see him trampled under?

Ah!  Surely they are strangers, 
not friends that we hold dear. 
The monsters that we view there, 
no kin to us...no fear!

If wrong, I stand corrected, 
are they not ourselves, reflected? 

Gourmet

In these brief lines, we shall explore

the habits of the carnivore.

The mighty lion, noble beast,

has oftentimes been known to feast

on animal with grace known well,

the fleet, the lovely, wild gazelle.

The black python, it is known,

if little pigs are left alone,

(oh damn his dark and greedy soul!)

will crush and swallow them quite whole.

The great deceiving crocodile,

will float quite quiet for a while,

and then, with one enormous crunch,

will have some swimmer for his lunch.

In parts of Asia isolate,

I do believe I’d hesitate,

before supping, with great zeal,

on a large green snake for my evening meal.

And yet we find we can forgive,

for all must eat if they’re to live:

but sympathy I cannot find

for devouring one of one’s own kind.

For I believe the greatest crime

and custom of the present time,

is the credo of man today

to devour anyone in his way.

To sum up my thoughts, most inner,

anyone could be someone’s dinner.

The Mountain

“Keep climbing,” they said, not saying why.
“Don’t turn back, you have to try.”
So onward I trudged, though the path was steep,
without looking back at my valley deep.

I was born in the valley,
where it smelt of spring, and new-mown hay, and growing things.
In the valley, where the robin sings,
and every Sunday the church bell rings
sharp at seven:
where they talked of Heaven
     not hell.
I remember the school, and the dusty road
where I’d run to help father carry his load
of greens from the garden, or fish from the sea.
He seemed to stand taller when smiling at me:
and the smile never faded.

The days were long,
but short as the stay
of a summer circus,
or a rainy day
in grandmother’s attic.

Then I watched the travellers, and saw them walk,
and not all passed, for some would talk.
And they spoke at length of the mountain high,
and of golden temples that reached the sky.
And I heard
and spoke not a word.
      But thought.
Then joined them in their weary climb
and pilgrimage to heights sublime.
But our breath grew short as we reached a plateau
in a land of mist, where bitter winds blow.
I could see no more of the valley below.

“Upward,” they cried, and surged ahead.
They pushed those weaker.  They walked on the dead, 
     not seeing.
And I ran in terror from the crowd, 
and heard mad voices calling loud.
But the sun had come from behind its cloud,
and I saw the valley, with fields fresh ploughed,
and ran faster.

I mended my nets and sharpened my hoe,
and forgot the mountain covered with snow:
and I watch the travellers passing by.
And once in a while, at night, I cry,
     and wonder.

Soul Fugue

Soul Fugue

All things must end,
but is the ending
an absolute?
Is not that end
a shining doorway
that opens to a new beginning?
Does the phoenix not spring,
singing,
from its ashes
into a different sky?

Nataraj dances
while the cosmic wheel turns:
endings and beginnings
are defined
by point of view.

I Wish My Words Could Scream

I wish my words could scream,
or burn with a fierce bright light
that would force you
to accept their meaning.

I wish my stanzas would pulsate,
and throb with a neon veracity
that would grab your vacillating gaze
and not let you turn away.

I wish that their reason
would capture you,
and bind you in compelling spell
cast on you by their truth.

I fear, though, that my words
fall short, and you, once more
repeat your foolish mantra
that I’m wrong, and you’re still right.

Indiscretions

I do not believe 
your acid tears 
puddling the floor 
around my feet.
Yet they dissolve me 
completely, 
leaving only 
an emotional husk 
that will, 
eventually, 
blow away 
in the slipstream 
of your indiscretions.

Sapper

I didn’t realise,
at first,
what was happening:
a slight tremor here,
a crack in the wall there.

You chipped away
at me,
working, I would assume,
to change me into an image
of something you needed.
Insecurities were fed
by incessant, and targetted,
whispered wounding words,
that shook the foundation
of who I was.

I didn’t realise,
at first,
what you had planned:
a quake here,
an explosion there.

When the charges were set,
and the plunger pressed,
something died
in the collapsing edifice,
but that something
was not me.

Scream of Consciousness

Always there,
it forces you to listen.
Leaping from topic to topic,
the incessant babble
can be
tiring,
amusing,
maddening,
demanding.

In search of sleep,
counting backwards
from one hundred,
you are interrupted 
at ninety-six,
and try,
fry,
fly,
cry,
to quiet the fiend.

Like a multilayered hard drive
with a read head
for each layer,
it assails,
regales,
derails,
wails,
commanding your complete attention.

Meditating to achieve silence,
the sound of the universe,
song of the stars,
background static
from the big bang,
crazed atoms
bombarding the inner ear,
prevents you
from being who you think you are,
by forcing you 
to be a part of the frenzied clamour
from which there is no escape,
only tired acceptance.

A Meditation on Birthdays

                          Seventy-five.
It sucks you into the magic of
              “three-quarters of a century”.
This is “wise-man-on-mountain” territory.
But no...
it is just me,
being me daily
to the exclusion of all else.

I like birthdays.
They are ours: individually and collectively
developed to include
us all.
They celebrate!
(not a god, not a prophet, not a sage,
not a sports icon, not a vapid celebrity)
They celebrate each of us,
with our warts and our weird;
our strengths and our deficits;
our loves, and our losses;
who we are,
and who we would 
like to be.

I am happy that,
somewhere along time’s arrow,
I have become a repository of history.
I remember WWII blackouts;
a home without electricity;
outdoor toilets;
seeing Princess Elizabeth
before she was a queen;
living in Mao’s Beijing,
with Lin Piao dead on the border;
Georgetown, with the memory of
James Jones,
and his call to madness;
the election of Junius Jayawardena
as President of Sri Lanka;
and the Killing Fields 
as they were happening;
and Santiago
weeks before the murder of 
Salvadore Allende;
just some of the highlights,
with much more forgotten
than most experience.

So yeah.  Seventy-five, eh?

Seems to be working for me...
                                            so far.