New poem: "The Great Writer's Dilemma"

 The Great Writer’s Dilemma

At the midpoint of his precocious life 

at the age of thirty-six, John Hoyer Updike

wrote “Midpoint,” his summing-up poem,

concluding his confessional mid-life narrative 

with the metanoic declaration: “Deepest in the 

thicket, thorns spell out a word. /Born laughing,

I’ve believed in the Absurd, /Which brought me 

this far; henceforth, if I can, /I must impersonate 

a serious man.” And so serious did he become, 

that just before passing over to the Other Side 

at the age of 76 of stage four lung cancer, he 

assembled and wrote his final book, “Endpoint 

and Other Poems,” summing up his prodigious 

life with the hopeful lines: “The tongue reposes 

in papyrus pleas, /saying, Surely—magnificent, 

that ‘surely’— /goodness and mercy shall follow 

me all /the days of my life, my life, forever.” He 

died with his antinomian faith intact, unresolved 

of his dual nature, a “proper man” to the sad 

end of his unfulfilled life. Nearing the endpoint 

of my own life, time’s winged chariot draws 

near; but I’ve resolved the divine paradox 

of the great writer’s dilemma, and I have 

no need to come back again. 

New poem: "What Jung Has Done for Me"

 

What Jung Has Done for Me

 

I don’t know how to answer the question,

“What has Jung done for you?” And if I tried,

I wouldn’t know where to begin; that’s how

deeply Jung has affected my life; —

 

Quite possibly for the depth and breadth

of his understanding of the human predicament,

on the unending vicissitudes of life, the joys

and sorrows of my individuation; —

 

For the redemptive wisdom that he imparted

on the way of what is to come, the unfathomable

nature of goodness and terrifying abyss of evil,

and his holy reverence for the Self; —

 

But when all is thought and said, what comes

to mind is his venerable face when John Freeman

asked him the God question, and Jung replied:

“I don’t need to believe. I know.” I couldn’t

have asked for anything more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New poem: "March 13, 2023"

 

March 13, 2023

 

Looking out my window,

I saw fresh snow, and I heard

Winter whispering, “Please

don’t let me go.”

 

But every season must come

to an end, only to be born

again; thus deems Nature with

every living thing.

 

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

here today, gone tomorrow;

an endless panoply of being

and becoming; —

 

But what’s it all for?

New poem: "My Books and Me"

 

My Books and Me

 I’ve always been a lover of books,

more than lover, actually; I’m more

of a lustful possessor. Or, I used

to be. Now I don’t know what I am

in my relationship with my books.

A very tired lover, perhaps; all used

up by the knowledge, wisdom,

and guidance that my books have

given me. But, try as I may today,

I cannot seem to find a book

that will light my fire like books

used to. I’m not burnt out. And

that’s the irony. I’m still on fire,

but not the same kind of ravishing

fire that books always inspired;

and—O, happy days! —I only read

books out of habit now, no longer

out of lustful desire.

 

New Poem: "A Certain Kind of Man"

 

 A Certain Kind of Man

 

I watched “Paris Can Wait” with Diane Lane,

whom I’ve always loved since her powerful

performance in “Unfaithful” with Richard Gere

playing her cuckolded husband, but who in

this romantic drama played an underappreciated

housewife needy of attention from her hotshot

Hollywood producer husband played by Alec

Baldwin. (Who else?) They travelled to France,

but he’s been called away to Budapest, and his

associate, an annoying Frenchman called Jacque,

who just happens to be a certain kind of man

who wants what he can’t have and when he gets

it no longer wants it, volunteers to chauffeur

Baldwin’s wife Anne, played by Diane, from

Cannes to Paris; and en route to the city of love,

that another certain kind of man with more élan

and four wives to his credit called “a moveable

feast,” what should’ve been a seven-hour drive

turned into a days-long road trip through La Belle

France, complete with vistas, fine restaurants, vin,

and vats of fromage, but how sweet it was that Anne

denied that certain piece of merde what he tried

to get; and out of the blue it came to me, as these

kinds of epiphanies often do, that “Paris Can Wait”

was the opposite of “Unfaithful,” and I marveled

at how the Cosmos always works to keep life

in a state of lilting grace.