ON RUNNING AWAY

They may not think of it as running away,

But at 15 they:

Entered the convent and put on the veil

Got in the pimp’s car and became a whore

Enlisted and were given a gun

Joined the sect to work for free.

              Many never got out alive.

Never join if they tell you

What food you can’t eat (for religion, not health)

What clothes you must wear (that mark you as different and owned)

What music’s forbidden (even if no one else hears)

How your hair must be cut (for organizational reasons)

Run away!

They are stealing your life with their vows and their lies!

Run away! You are under no obligation to stay!

But running away does not need to mean attempting suicide -

From that too, many never get out alive…

O young people!

At 15 it is best, if you have to leave home,

To go overseas on a high school exchange for a year.

Almost as good (but short term)

Is to run to your family’s friends

Or your friends’ families.

But if you have to leave family behind

It is better to run off and join the circus

Or move in with an artist

Or work your way round the world on a boat

And to go from idea to idea

(This is the secret. Not to get stuck in any idea. The world is too large),

Than to live with the one-idea people

Who will suck your brain dry.

You may never get out alive.

Published online: Snakeskin 225, January 2016

WHEN KONRAD LORENZ

When Konrad Lorenz studied how small fish

Overcame lethal greedy tendency

By activating new dependency -

Called love - to build a larger fulfilled wish,

He clarified the dynamic sweep and swish

Of conquest across Earth’s wide land and sea

That gave to humans such ascendancy,

Watched warfare grow as in a petri dish.

War against Other creates Family.

The nut of war that no hard mind can crack

If opened would show God Life Blaze Attack,

Drying white hot deaths else left clammily.

So life says Outcompete! Outnumber! Breed!

Build Love of Tribe and State! Expand! Succeed!

Published online: Snakeskin 225, January 2016

AN ATHEIST HOPES FOR HEAVEN

There flows in my veins the most ancient of ardors:

Not power, or love, nor yet worship of God;

The fight that each tiniest baby fights hard as

Fought earliest man: “Understand!”  Pry and prod

With unquenchable flame of the world-disregarders

For Truth! – be it complex, destructive or odd.

If this fire is from Heaven, then Heaven I’ve earned;

So write on my grave: “This stone too shall be turned.”

Published in Shot Glass Journal, #18, January 2016

THE FUTURE AS CDG TERMINAL 1

The future is a long low passage,

Whitewashed, undulating,

A moving forward-flowing track,

No chance of going back.

The future has no message,

Its ads are guides only to the past,

Misleaders, redesignposts,

Echoes, undefined ghosts.

The future is travelled without presage,

Always onward, none comes back.

Predestination without destination.

Stationary or walking, you’ve no final station.

The future goes on until you get off.

I won't. I will not to get off.

Published: The Rotary Dial, Toronto, January 2016

THE FUTURE AS EVENT

The future like an avalanche

Is roaring down the sky.

If you’ve prepared no hiding place

Then be prepared to die.

You never reason why.

The future like a question mark

Is scything humankind.

If you can see, then handle it –

You’ll be cut down if blind.

The future doesn’t mind.

The future like a giant wave

Is heading for the shore.

If you can ride that wall-like wave

It’s no wall, but a door

Into forever more.

Published: The Rotary Dial, Toronto, January 2016

HAPPY LOVE

Midnight making moonscapes of you on my mattress

I bounce across you in shadows and one-sixth gravity—

One-sixth gravity, and five-sixths levity.

Published: Rat’s Ass Review 2016

JIGSAW HEART

My heart's a jigsaw Eschered with small hearts:

Poets: Donne, Arnold, Hopkins, Eliot, Cole – 

Ancestors: captured, wed while on parole –

Family: formed from wandering in wild parts –

Bits of my heart. A house, view of the sea –

Rain-lilies, poincianas, jasmine scent –

Azaleas, goldfish, owls, field grass rain-bent –

Cafe on loud street – quiet library –

My jigsaw's nearly done, a work of heart!

But where’s that long-lost girl-shaped piece…

Lost, it prevents the whole, prevents my peace…

I circle endlessly for that lost part,

The missing statue for the purposed plinth,

That girl lost in some Escher labyrinth.

Published: The Lyric, USA, January 2016

EIGHT LEGS

Odin had a spider

In a web above his throne.

“Out!” he said; it came to him.

“And up!” he said; it grew.

“Legs go this way, legs go that!”

The wind began to moan.

Odin touched a spur to Sleipnir,

Through the storm they flew.

Published, Anima, UK, No.2, 2016

THE EXHAUSTED MINE

In the hard granite of a human chest

Love’s small explosions blast a cavity.

While pumps and sluices clear ore and debris,

Miners create a cavernous heart divest

Of wealth gone out. There may at times unfold

Sad tales of miners trapped by falling stone,

But life demands the risky work go on:

This treasure chest of granite’s veined with gold

The world demands be brought into the light.

A huge cathedral of the spirit’s left,

Caverns of empty worship, dream-bereft,

The treasures claimed by others as their right.

But flecks of gold still glitter in the gloom,

The heart remembers glories in its tomb.

Published, Anima, UK, No.2, 2016

GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME

The wide world has its glories

In a rich complexity

But sitting watching the sun set

Is good enough for me.

Canada has six time zones

From sea to sea to sea

But one tide lapping where I sit

Is good enough for me.

The muezzins in the Saudi mosques

Wake all to pray and pee

But a rooster crowing in the bush

Is good enough for me.

And Singapore is lush and green

And managed prettily

But scrub grass and a sandy beach

Are good enough for me.

All – good enough for me.

Published online: Snakeskin 225, January 2016