The Doubt of the Benefit

 

February 4, 2014  (I was 69)

 

         The Doubt of the Benefit

Sometimes you just put one in for the system

You spend the entire day mopping up

The only other people I see mop just as much as me

It aint no thrill to find I’m the one caused the spill

Understand I do it in belief I affect the system

or in the same way I still pray long after

I quit believing in religion 

Harder to do each day

Each day the system has another way to explain

the role of those who serve the system

out of love out of duty out of belief they are valued

not only for their ability to mop but for their knowledge

of where exactly to mop on any given day

 

Not so much in the doing

 

from this week in February 2012  (I was 67)

 

Not so much in the doing

as in the having done

nor in the making compared

to having made the grade

Between the conception and accomplishment

lie the discouraging details

assumed as debt to establish the worth

The art within the finished product

A twitch a tremble a tremor

January 18

from this week in January 2011  (I was 66)

 

A twitch a tremble a tremor

We hold on to one another in fear

The result is a chain reaction

worry anxiety protective paranoia

We have no charms

no amulets no talisman no mojo

The beads have dissolved in tears

It is not fate destiny or karma

earth moves and we are of the earth

It jiggles it shakes it shudders

Everything settles into a low spot

The effects cannot assume a cause

Purpose is a cosmic conception

black hole or anti-matter

beyond my walnut mind

old man where is your wisdom now

 

January 12, 1972  (I was 27)

 

old man where is your wisdom now

now that you have learned all your lessons

outliving Faust Lear and the Don

 

the great wars were escapades

once past great dreams and great acts are the same

paternal ghosts in the fog

a precious flaw in the wall between lovers

silent thrill of a laughing mute

or cut heard by Van Gogh

 

how big is the puzzle old man

and how will you face tomorrow

polarity is our only certainty

Spread Sheet

 

Dec. 30, 2015  (I was 71)

 

                  Spread Sheet

 

The accountant sets the figures in rows and columns

The arrangement of these ranks and files

is a story to be understood

swift smooth forward movements of addition

Leaps of multiplication make future projections

Offsets are deficits backtracking subtractions

that tell a different tale tone and direction

revelations on the other side of the point

The accountant knows fractions are where lives are lived

in the minutiae of the daily entry

that very human attempt to measure profit and loss

extending the graph of the big picture

once confined to a cabinet now stored in a cloud

 

it is difficult to be stupid everyday

 

December 4, 2013  (I was 69)

 

it is difficult to be stupid everyday

I seem to forget how nearly every night

Just before I fall asleep I feel smartness creep in

I wake up clear-headed and practical

at times even ambitious and tolerant

perfectly willing to pass others with a smile

wishing them good morning as if it were mine to bestow

Soon I get to thinking change is possible

then encounter the complexity of inertia

a recollection of mindlessness at first

a low drone the scent of futility remembered

from history books and faded newspaper

the re-acquaintance with the shadow of doubt

who leans closer to whisper in the afternoon

to suggest it’s time to prepare a dinner of fatted sloth

and the recipe falls to mind step by step

beginning with a slow heat to render the fat

before stewing the meat in the amalgam of ingredients

that simmer into a singular tastelessness

I eat my fill directly from the pot in front of the TV

watching I think some game show where luck

decides whether someone wins or loses today

So often with partial mind

 

from November, 2019  (I was 75)

 

So often with partial mind

thinking seems inept

yet one-eyed sight is not blind

common sense and image kept

 

Inspiration needs a spark

deep thought seeks the dark

Most time we avoid the glare

to see our dappled shadow there

 

When rid of that shade inside

comes a task in view

Art and focus must decide

what half a mind can do

I never could do hard work

 

November 1, 2013  (I was 68)

 

I never could do hard work so I

did easy work.  Hark work had no

purposeful end for me.  Easy

work had a reason.  Something I
made would be fun later.  A place

I invented could be visited again.

Hard work felt like my life was ending.

The more I did the closer it got.

Hard work required a hiding place.

Sometimes others made hard work

harder.  They required an escape-

ownership of even a moment- two

breaths, a task at a distance.  Easy

work defined itself, made itself obvious

without mention.  Often I found myself

doing easy work with no awareness of

having begun.  The tools of easy work

are very light.  I improvised ways to

use them.  It is hard to be the cause

to produce the correct effect.  It is

easy to be the effect that wonders

at the cause.  I wonder at the cause. 

 

All the knowledge known and expressed

 

October 22, 2010  (I was 65)

 

All the knowledge known and expressed

cannot equal the known but unexpressed

So much written but never read

pictured or sculpted and never seen

composed arranged and unheard

fabrics woven never felt

fragrant esters inhaled but once

tastes of numbers and notions

found and forgotten a thousand times

images thought by disembodied mind

thoughts imaged by unmindful hand

Master work in the bottom drawer

of a cabinet in grandfather’s basement

If we find but one piece

we search forever for another

A little brown monk

 

from this week in October, 1977  (I was 32)

 

A little brown monk

each hand in the other’s sleeve

earns his bald spot

his badge of heavenly reflection

padding round the courtyard paths

like a solitary runner doing his laps

getting in shape for the big meet

They went to war by choice

 

from this week in July 2016  (I was 71)

 

    They went to war by choice

to vent and give voice to rant

from a pent violence

They learned to kill

as a matter of will

 

Here’s your boots and how

your weapon shoots

You go to the desert

you dress like dirt

 

They take what they need to succeed

cover their bros’ backs even

when they seldom relax

 

deployed rather than employed

never entreated utilized til depleted

Things blew up technology too

In their minds fuses were lit

 

They took what they need to survive

skills of the will and pills for the pains

Whatever they took they took home

 

Early on I knew I was on Earth

 

June 8, 2013  (I was 68)

 

Early on I knew I was on Earth

to learn humility

I’ve been given so many opportunities

early on I suspected

I’d never quite get the hang of it

Over the years I’ve grown to accept that

We are all limited in our talents

No matter the effort the perseverance

there are some goals

that remain unattainable

The problem is my perception

that what’s missing was of essence

I am not one to belong

 

from this week in May, 2012  (I was 67)

 

I am not one to belong to an organization

but I am not disorganized nor am I

anti-organization for the common good

commonly decided unionization

for instance to negotiate contracts

with financially advantaged

politically influential partisans

who call themselves management

without the mis- so often apparent

 

I want to flock with right wing pacifists

who know they can’t fly without a left wing

I play golf like a right-brain leftist

with a gang playing like left-brain rightists

and a guy named no-brain-Wayne

who hits the ball long and says fuck ‘em all

from well inside his flask by the fourth hole

And its okay by me nobody plays by the rules

I got my own game and guess they are the same

Giving was the gift I never had

 

from this week in 2014  (I was 70) 

 

Giving was the gift I never had

What I received I thought I was owed

Though I was the one always in debt

I often reaped what others sowed

 

Told I was the most self-possessed

adopted selective deafness

chose to dismiss the unimpressed

with decisive swiftness

 

Anywhere I was I learned to be alone

In a meeting or celebration

knew how to say nothing well

always found a way to be a stone

we do good

 

December 3, 2006  (I was 62)

 

                  we do good

Waiting for the big event that directs life

is what you get from a religious childhood

where faith is more heroic than realism

Divine intervention is expected

the ears of the deaf open like flowers

sin demons leap from sanctified mouths

Boys with slings slay evil giants

virgin girls bear sons who save the world

Prophets of exclusion defile foreign nations

ceremony and sacrifice cajole the air

 

We are diminished by our supernatural acts

Attribute victory and defeat to angels and devils

and man is responsible for neither

Healing is of the Lord cut off the surgeons’ hands

Accept the infinity of possibility

but expect science to furnish the wings

before seraphic sproutings change the neighborhood

The good carpenter down the street

plying an honest craft in the face of vile convention

is more rare than the divine who rises from the dead

You can live it over now

 

November 28, 2006  (I was 62)

 

You can live it over now

you can live it better

if you find a better place to live it

The best places have always been

those least changed by our things

Our great numbers are to be considered

but deconstructed greed reduces need

a non-electronic withdrawl

into the leafy world of was

a newhere beyond the vid game realm

where we really can believe we are not

both victim and perp in a drive by

I hain’t got the blues; I got to choose

 

November 11, 2014  (I was 69)         

 

I hain’t got the blues; I got to choose

I did what I’s supposed, went undiagnosed

I read the news and formulated views

I opened the door but didn’t rob the store

paid my dues but never lit the fuse

Whole family regressed, I got depressed

I hain’t got the blues, said I got to choose

Didn’t see eye to eye, didn’t dance cheek to cheek

I’s always the guy waitin’ til next week

always saw the muse in pastel hues

through a fog dissolve   

fine tuning

 

September 1, 1970  (I was 25)

 

         fine tuning

oh tellovision mellowvision

of soft images and fair

winging smoothly to me

across the turbulent air

what am I to learn from you

heat my heart and warm my tubes

let me create a dream that’s new

let it be an electric miracle

a stability both horizontal and vertical.

Spending our time

 

August 16,1977  (I was 32)

 

         Spending our time.  Isn’t it a marvelous phrase?  An honest idiom.  Do you want to make an investment?  I spent a lot of time on you.  I spent time up in the hills.  I spent time creating ways for others to spend time.  I’ve spent time as if time did not exist.  I spent time watching the elderly spending time wisely or childishly.  I’ve spent time like money, expecting a guarantee.  I’ve bought entire years I can’t remember and inexpensive moments I’ve never forgotten.  I still find myself spending time regretting time lost and time spent waiting for another time.  I may have arrived at an awkward time for you.  You are racing with your own time.

Youth brings Grandma

 

April 8, 2011  (I was 66)

 

Youth brings Grandma

    a fresh ripe peach

from her tree as a present

    for himself he picked two

 

Grandma grants youth

    an indulgence

knowing he has given

    all that he can give

 

The fresh ripe peach that Grandma

    eats reminds her of the fresh

ripe peach she

    has already eaten