Transient

A cornerstone of collective psyche
is the sense of “just passing through”;
and, folksy aphorisms notwithstanding,
we understand that this is true.

This weight of intuitive knowledge
comes with great emotional cost,
as we tend to lament “might-have-been”
and dwell on a past that is lost.

We traditionally build our gods
to offer salvation from life’s fray,
focussing on a heaven tomorrow
rather than building one here, today.

Our short lives are but a flicker,
a brief flash of intense light,
by which we must illuminate the Now
that precedes our cosmic night.

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.

Now and Then

There has never been a time
when I was more at peace 
than I am now.

There has never been a time 
when I realised that then
would lead to now.

There has never been a time 
when I understood more of me,
both then, and now.

There has never been a time
when accumulated regrets eclipsed
the joy of now.

There has never been a time
when my ignorance was greater,
but mattered less than now.

There has never been a time
when global stupidity endangered us 
more than now.

There has never been a time
when yesterday and tomorrow
mattered more than now.

There has never been a time
when we needed love and peace
more than Now.

Channel Surfing Between Realities

Morning sun on sparkling harbour
with cooling northwest breeze:
beagle, unaffected by view,
pursues scents that must be
hallucinogenic
for this small hound.

Monkeys cavorting
at Baker’s Falls
in Horton Plains National Park:
the southern ocean winks diamonds
in a blue distance,
beyond Yala.

The Pearl River flows,
thick and sluggish,
crowded with boats 
that represent three centuries
of water transport styles.
On the horizon,
the Hong Kong estuary awaits,
guarded by stern Victoria Peak.

On a quiet sand island,
kept stable by banyan roots,
clever crabs hide in the trees
to avoid the heat of the water.
In the distance, the bridge to Abu Dhabi
is laden with goods trucks,
and gold plated Mercedes and BMWs.

The dog spots a rabbit,
and the morning is shattered
by the baying of this fulfilled hound.
I ponder at the elaborate mechanism
by which our memories are stimulated
to replay random elements
from a full and contented life.

Coffee awaits on the southern verandah,
and the gentle wind 
whispers to the pines,
with birdsong filling a perfect day,
and sunlight on the harbour.

April Snow, and Low Biorhythms

I feel the chill wind
of irrelevance
drafting under the door
of my reality.

Trapped in the slipstream
from the cannonball of time,
I am swept along,
battered by objects
that I cannot avoid.

A frail transparency
envelopes me,
and the strength of my youth
is but a memory
that smells of past summers.

My focus fades,
as dark clouds block the sun,
and I am unable to recover
a smile that has been missing
far too long.

Tomorrow will be different
I say, wondering as I speak,
if I can escape the vortex
of today, to bask in the light
of a sun just faintly remembered.

Looking in a mirror
I see an old man
who is almost translucent,
and not quite here.

On Intellectual Expedience

We turn our faces away, time and again,

at media images of death, hate, and pain.

Overwhelmed, problem resolution beyond our reach,

our logical core screams an existential screech.

Wahhabism, ISIS, the KKK,

the faces of evil we encounter each day:

corrupt politicians, and their corporate masters,

serial killers, ecological disasters.

Too many people breeding so fast,

an unsustainable planet that just won’t last.

So many realities calling me, me, and me,

so many eyes that refuse to see.

Every tribe seeking to advance their view,

with ethics and religions that exclude me and you:

in a feedback loop of stupidity so profound,

that altruism, acceptance and love cannot abound.

We bury our heads, like the ostrich adage,

in the sand of confusion, and ignore the carnage.

Intellectual expendience, driven by fear

of a truth, a reality we don’t want to hear.

Well, here’s a thought that you might not have heard:

pretend the Enlightenment never occurred!

Let’s implement the vision that we all can see,

of a new inclusive world, unafraid and free!

The Demise of the Golden Rule

It is not the concept of tolerance,
for it is a most worthy quality,
but the use and distribution thereof
that disturbs me.

How is it, then, that screams of “intolerance”
emanate most stridently
from those who preach uniformity
of beliefs?

Population grows, and jobs relocate;
economic migration, refugees and the dispossessed,
seek to better their lives
and we complain.

We are threatened by our insecurities,
incensed by the politics of fear,
and embarrassed by empathy,
which is hovering near extinction.

We have all become the “me” generation,
and seek only our betterment,
while refusing to see that can only be
a societal endeavour, to benefit all.

A drone collective, we moan in concert,
each movement controlled, orchestrated
by choirmasters who have no skill,
nor interest in the tune, or the chorus.

It is not the concept of tolerance,
for it is a most worthy quality,
but the increasing rarity of it
that saddens me, for us all.

Living in Almost

Helpless, overwhelmed,
you watch the tsunami build
on a horizon dark and chaotic.
The sky is obscured by storm clouds,
pregnant with violence.

Light leaks from a landscape
drained of colour and life:
sound echoes ominously,
dull, threatening, metallic:
engulfed by the cacophony of your mind.

The vortex is here:
you have circled long around the edge,
but now the blackness calls
and you feel yourself slipping,
without strength, without hope.

Your mind races, tired, confused,
as you search for the key,
the lifeboat that will ride the tempest,
and sustain you until a brightening dawn:
you can almost reach its safety...almost.

Deconstructing Perspective

Pristine,
sharp and heady,
the air from his
mountaintop,
reset his parameters
by removing them.

His vista
was complete,
and stretched
to forever.
Everything he could see
melded together
into a cohesive
living unity,
the sense of commonality
electrifying the thin mountain air.

Memories sang
and screamed,
bludgeoned and caressed,
whimpered and rejoiced:
phantoms,
chimeras,
all denizens of these lower
darker levels.

Failing light,
dampness, noise,
and an overwhelming sense of
alone:
abject exhaustion:
the dark call
of sleep.

Pristine,
sharp and heady,
the air from his
mountaintop,
reset his parameters
by removing them.

On Leaving The Tribe

Collectivism
is comfortable:
you know you belong,
and what to think,
never mind
the Ayn Rand connection.

The first fracture
was actually a schism:
I could not accept
the tribal god.
Social benefits
for the weak,
incapacitated,
needy;
universal healthcare;
abortion;
assisted dying;
secular government;
weapons control;
the list of differences
between my thought
and tribe-thought
continued to grow
exponentially.

I am alone now,
not surrounded,
and frustrated,
by people and ideas
that I cannot respect,
nor understand.

I am content now,
meeting likeminded people
in the most unusual of places,
realising that tribe-think
is retrogressive socially
and developmentally.

With personal horizons broad enough
one has the vision
of a small blue planet
floating peacefully
through the cosmos:
one journey,
one species,
one destiny,
one tribe,
together.

The Deleterious Effect of Routine on Aging

Stick to a routine,
they tell me:
it is important to keep
regular.
But why?  I respond.
Regular is boring;
regular is deteriorating;
regular numbs the mind.
What about the marvel
of serendipity,
the magical chaotic carpet
that has brought me
here, now, content?

You must focus,
they chant:
it will help
remembering things.
I already remember,
I scream:
why must I change
who I am
simply to become an older,
and less capable,
copy of a former me?

But you are older now,
they repeat,
and have to take care
of yourself.
They will repeat some old adage
or other,
designed to show me
the encapsulated wisdom
of the ages.
I laugh aloud,
and alarm the dog,
and do a little soft-shoe,
sip some fresh ground
Fair Trade coffee.

Then, abandoning all advice;
not caring for routine,
or focus,
I write this poem,
and continue to age,
but as me,
not a frail but organised,
focussed but bored,
copy of this
one and only
original
me.

On The Dangers Of Multi-tasking

On the very first page
of the instruction booklet,
“How to Properly View Reality”,
it is quite clearly stated,
“Focus.”

In physics,
the “double slit experiment”
permits viewing of
light and matter
as both waves
and particles.

In multi-tasking,
as focus
is divided,
one is never
sure,
from a physics
point of view,
if what you are treating as a wave
is, in fact,
a particle.

When uncertainty rules
your complementary variables,
at least
your principles
remain.

On Becoming Something Quite Different

It doesn’t have to be
a quantum change,
or monumental at all,
to shift to strange;
to stand in
bewildered wonder
at a reality
too different,
too alien,
too welcoming
to be comprehended
at all.

It can be a little thing,
a “yes”, or a “no”,
a left turn
that should have been
right.

(refrain)
And you won’t understand,
you can’t even know,
the madness that now stands before you.
And you won’t understand,
you can’t even know,
until it’s too late,
and you do.

Reality Check

Everything we see is filtered through
the lens of self.
All we learn is distilled
by conditioning:
familial, cultural, commercial,
and religious.

My truth is your blasphemy:
your dogma, to others, insanity.
The rules by which we live
apply only in our individual
egocentric interpretations.

We walk through life
unaware of the strangeness,
the fantasy,
the terror,
the sociopathic pulse
that throbs unseen
beneath the surface
of what we all know
as our lives.

We are tribal:
our religions, cultures, philosophies,
are created to make each tribe special,
non-inclusive and xenophobic,
wary of others
until they conform.

We are groups in search of common vision,
and, until that vision emerges
societal progress will stagnate,
or continue towards restoring
the archaic past,
glorified by holy books
and autocratic godspeakers.

The time has come to abandon the fantasies
from the childhood of our species,
and embrace progress and a greater good for all.
It is time for inclusiveness,
equality, and a commonality of purpose
that will define us as humanity,
and carry us forward to a brighter tomorrow
in a shared reality
that all can see.

The Falling of a Leaf (Reality Check series)

Autumn,
and photosynthesis
decrees
a period of winter dreaming.
The tree slows,
living on stored food,
and little energy.

The leaves,
released from factory duties,
celebrate
with colourful display:
a tribute to summers past.
They fall.  They become one
with the earth
from whence they came.

The fallen leaves
did not develop
myths and fables
of a Father Tree
that created all.
They have no expectation
of a leaf reunion
on the Great Oak In The Sky.

They live.
They perform their tasks.
They celebrate their completion.
They fall.
Their elements become
part of all that was,
all that is,
and all that will follow.

Their lives are fruitful:
they grow;
they work;
they age;
they fall.
The universe does not destroy:
it transforms.

May we learn from leaves.
May our autumns blaze with colour.
May our transformation be joyous.