New poem: "The More He Reads..."

 

The More He Reads…

 An eclectic and voracious reader

his whole life, with thousands of books

in his home library, but lately a feeling

has crept over him that the more he reads,

the less he knows, and it’s terrifying. All

the same, he’s taking a deep dive into

a great writer’s life, his many and varied

works of literature—poetry, short stories,

novels galore, not to mention hundreds

of book and art reviews, personal essays,

and criticism, less than half of which

would be more than enough to shatter

the confidence of most writers; but the

lonely writer soldiers on, as most writers

are wont to do, plugging away at the great

writer’s magnificent oeuvre, in the hope

that one day he will get over his phobia

of reading him and enjoy the great writer

for the literary genius that he is.

 

New poem: "Poor Old Alfred Orage"

 Poor Old Alfred Orage

 

“Literature is not enough,” said the precocious

New Zealand short story writer Katherine

Mansfield to her brilliant editor of the New Age

journal, Alfred Orage, who fled the literary scene

in London to study the sly man’s teaching at

his Institute for the Harmonious Development

of Man in Fontainebleau, France, digging a ditch

and filling it up again to break the hypnotic

hold that his mind had over him and create his

own immortal soul, praising the sly man’s teaching

as “sublime common sense.” But—and there is

always a but with these unorthodox ways! —after

years of translating the sly man’s gobbledygook

book “Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson,” he

returned to London to edit his new journal, The

New English Weekly, publishing Dylan Thomas’s

first published poem, “And Death Shall Have No

Dominion,” in the May 18^th, 1933 issue, coming

full circle back to Literature again, which was

never enough to satisfy the longing in his soul for

wholeness and completeness; and poor old Alfred

Orage died in his sleep of heart failure.

 

New poem: "Carpe Diem"

 

Carpe Diem

 

What do you do when God calls you home

and you’re not ready to go? What do you say?

Where do you go?  Who do you see?

Oh, how lonely life can be!

 

The years you lived, all the sacrifice and pain

and love you have for your devoted spouse

and family—not near enough now; but it’s too

late, the Grim Reaper’s at the gate!

 

And then you hear, from God knows where,

a miracle perhaps, modern science, or a blessing

from your past, but reprieved from your day

of reckoning, you cry in humbled pain —

 

Thank you, God! Thank you, heaven! Thank you

everyone! And when all your thanking is done,

you promise yourself to seize the day, and live

every moment of your precious life with

more gratitude than desire.

New poem: "Falling in Love with Life Again"

 

Falling in Love with Life Again

 

I wonder now what my life would be like,

had I not taken the path I did that set

my soul free of all the doubt and anxiety

of my belief system, of heaven and hell

and my life in between; —

 

And I wonder now what my life would be like,

had I not crossed the Atlantic on an ocean liner

to live in France where I had lived before

as le salaud de Paris, awakening forgotten

memoires of my sordid past; —

 

And I wonder now what my life would be like,

had I not awakened the Coiled Serpent while

meditating on a maple leaf in Annecy,

which set my mind on fire and tore my life

apart with untamed desire; —

 

And I wonder now what my life would be like

had not serendipity introduced me to the sly

man’s teaching while studying philosophy

at university, which opened up the secret

way of dying before dying to me; —

 

And I wonder now what my life would be like

had the way not possessed me to walk away

from the halls of academia to live my life

in absentia for years, paying back my soul’s

debt and falling in love with life again.