New poem: "Just a Higher Form of Thinking"

 

Just a Higher Form of Thinking

 

A poet’s mind is not like yours and mine.

Well, not my mind actually; because I’m a poet,

and I know how poets think. It took a long time

before I saw it, but it became obvious with each

new poem that I wrote; and what I saw confirmed

American Zen poet Jane Hirshfield’s insight on how

poetry did her thinking for her. It was her mind,

actually; a highly specialized aspect of Jane’s mind

that saw beyond the images of life into the essential

nature of the experience, an aspect of the mind

that thinks in symbols. That’s the secret of the poet’s

genius, to look beyond the images of life and translate

what it sees into symbols that reveal the essential

meaning of the experience and integrate that truth into

the conscious personality. It`s not a mystery, actually;

just a higher form of thinking that Carl Jung attributed

to our “transcendent function,” poetry’s way of integrating

our unconscious and conscious self into a more fully

realized personality, which he called “the process

of individuation.”

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

New poem: "The Sands of Lost Time"

 

The Sands of Lost Time

 

I saw an elephant graveyard yesterday

morning on social media. Well, not really;

but real enough for me, being the poet

that I am who sees beyond the mundane

images of life into a whole new symbolic

reality of meaning. Retired men and women

laying lifeless in the cooling shade of big

umbrellas on a Florida beach waiting for

the happy hour and evening meal, passing

the tedious days away as their aging bodies

allow them; not unlike elephants who sense

their death is near, so legend has it, migrate

to that mythical place where the tusks

and bones of their ancestors lay

in the sands of lost time.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

New poem: "The Maple Leaf Forever"

 

 

The Maple Leaf Forever

 

Little did he know what he was doing

(or did he?); but Donald J. Trump, the 45^th

President of the United States who won

back the Oval Office from President Joe

Biden, whose mind was in obvious decline,

became the 47^th President and said, in jest,

(maybe not), that Canada should be the 51^st

State of the nation that he wanted to make

great again. Trump sent such a chill into

the Canadian people that it threw the country

into such a tizzy of doubtful identity that

it felt like stepping out of a mist into the

stark reality of our how separate and different

we are from our good friends and neighbors;

and, deliberate or not, President Trump

did the Maple Leaf Forever

a great favor.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Friday, March 21, 2025

New poem: "Just an Obscure Canadian Poet"

 

Just an Obscure Canadian Poet

 

I`m just an obscure Canadian poet

who got pulled into the 2024 American

election, and so mesmerized did I become

by Donald J. Trump, the 45^th President

of the United States who was running against

President Joe Biden to win back the Oval

Office, that I was compelled to write a poem

on their public debate that ended Biden’s

bid for the White House and brought Kamala

Harris into the race, which in turn inspired

a whole volume of Trumpian poems to see

what my muse had to tell me about the man

whom I began to see would become one

of the greatest Presidents of the United States,

if not the greatest; but I’m just an obscure

Canadian poet, and what do I know?

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

New poem: "Old Habits Are Hard to Break"

 

Old Habits Are Hard to Change

 

Tolstoy began his great novel Anna Karenina

with the famous sentence, “All happy families

are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its

own way.” It’s an old cliché, the more things

change, the more they stay the same; but what

was the logic of Tolstoy’s thinking? Why are happy

families happy, and unhappy families unhappy?

What did the great Russian novelist know about

families that rang so true throughout the ages?

I watched the 47^th President of the United States,

Donald J. Trump, deliver his first joint session

of Congress speech to the divided families of the

Republican and Democratic Parties, beginning with

the declaration “AMERICA IS BACK,” and Tolstoy’s

most famous sentence came to mind. It was ironic

that the Democratic family sat to the right side

of President Trump as he delivered his speech, and

the Republican family sat to his left; but it became

obvious by how the two Parties reacted to President

Trump’s NEW GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA speech

which family was woke-free, functional, and happy,

and which family was still infested with the woke

ideology of false empathy, dysfunctional, and  

unhappy. Old habits are hard to change.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

New poem: "The Many Faces of Stupidity"

 

 

The Many Faces of Stupidity

 

Of the many faces of stupidity, there can be

none more grotesque than the unconscionable

stupidity of the woke idiocy of the American

Democratic Party that has become so insensitive

to the goodness of their fellow Americans

that not a single Democrat stood up or clapped

their hands for President Trump’s unbelievable

accomplishments in the first forty-three days

of his second term at the Oval Office, like shutting

down the southern border so thoroughly and

dispatching thousands of illegal criminal migrants

back to where they came from; nor did they

stand up or clap in gratitude for any of President

Trump’s kept promises to heal the soul of his ailing

nation—no men in women’s sports, no more DEI

and woke ideology in schools, military, and work

force—as he delivered his joint session speech

to Congress. The palpable disdain the Democrats

have for President Donald J. Trump has made

them so unconscionably stupid that they can

no longer see who they were and what

they have become.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

New poem: "Calling a Spade a Spade"

 

Calling a Spade a Spade

 

Awakened to how the game of life

was played, that’s what made Donald J. Trump

the man that he became, calling a spade a spade

and not a heart, diamond, or a club— “there

are only two sexes, male and female”— a man

of uncanny common sense whose mind was immune

to the toxic woke virus that sent his proud nation

into a tailspin of mayhem and nonsense under

the cognitively enfeebled President Joe Biden

and radically progressive woke-infested Vice President

Kamala Harris, which Trump promised to reclaim

and heal with his judicious new cabinet as the 47^th

President of his repatriated great nation, home

of the brave, strong, and free, and every newcomer

who came to America legally to make a new life

for themselves and their family.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Sunday, January 26, 2025

New poem: "The Mystery of Don and Me"

 

The Mystery of Don and Me

 

Don, you were born to be you,

and I was born to be me; the choices

you made cost you dearly, and the choices

I made were impossible to make, costing

me a life not meant to be, But you became

you, and I became me; and in the end,

we got to where we were destined to be,

you being you and me being me. That`s

the mystery of Don and me that puzzles

everyone but you and me.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Saturday, February 2, 2025

New poem: "Life's Blessed Drudgery"

 

Life’s Blessed Drudgery

 

That last step is the shortest,

but most difficult step you will ever

take out of the ten million and one

steps it took you to get there, that

joyful place you were destined to be,

your true self, resolved and free

of life’s blessed drudgery.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Sunday, February 16, 2025

New poem: "The Lens of Our Perception"

 

The Lens of Our Perception

 

When we look at life and see the good

and bad in people, it’s the lens of our perception

that determines our understanding; like the way

we see Donald J. Trump, the billionaire President

of the United States who continues to puzzle

the world with what he says, some people seeing

a morally corrupt conman just out for himself,

and others a monomaniacal President hell-bent

on making America great again. Good or bad, it’s

the lens of our perception that determines how

we see the 45^th and 47^th President of the United

States; and when he meets St. Peter at the pearly

gates of heaven, he won’t be asked if he was

good or bad, but if he fulfilled his promise

to make America great again.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

New poem: "When Writing Poetry"

 When Writing Poetry

 

When writing poetry, I never pour the large

into the small; the small will never contain

the large. When writing poetry, I always pour

the small into the large, which will always contain

the small. That’s my perspective on the puzzling life

of Donald J. Trump, which was inspired by the literary

genius of America’s preeminent man of letters,

John Hoyer Updike, whose only duty was to describe

reality as it had come to him and give the mundane

its beautiful due. In the smallest details of daily life,

Updike captured the big picture of the human condition,

and his beautiful stories will be read as long as there

is literature. My poems may one day slip into obscurity,

but my muse informs me that President Donald J. Trump

is not only going to save America’s democracy from

the rot in the system, as he was called by providence

to do, but to also change the course of history;

and I trust the magical art of poetry writing,

which does the thinking for me.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Sunday, January 5, 2025

New poem: "The Eye of the Storm"

 

 

The Eye of the Storm

 

I am where I want to be, right here,

in Tiny Beaches, Georgean Bay,

Ontario; and my state of mind and soul

are at the stillpoint of my life, that long

sought-after place of wholeness where

the being and non-being of my paradoxical

nature no longer vie for more life,

that mystical union of blissful resolution

of my inner and outer self, the eye

of the storm in the whirlwind of life—

mysterium coniunctionis.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

New poem: "America's God-given Destiny"

 

 

America’s God-given Destiny

 

Powerless to their shadow dark side,

they cannot let go of their vitriolic hatred

for the Donald who so got under their skin,

for whatever reason—his insufferable ego,

his resented billions, his unbelievable capture

of the highest office of the land, his orange

hair, his braggadocio, his mere presence offends

people—but he won back the Oval Office and

became the 47^th President of the United States

and is doing exactly what he said he was going

to do to make America great again, and I can

hear (I swear to God it’s not in my mind) the

dying squeals of all Trump deniers who cannot

bring themselves to admit how wrong they were

about the man who broke the back of the woke

beast that President Biden and Kamala Harris

unleashed upon the American people that did

more harm than all previous administrations, and

the President set his wonder worker Elon Musk

and his nerdy DOGE team free to take the rot out

of government and make his beloved nation of the

United States honest, safe, strong, healthy and

free again to pursue America’s God-given destiny

of leading the world out of darkness into the

light of LIFE, LIBERTY, and JUSTICE.

 

New post-election Trumpian poem

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Friday, February 7, 2025

 

New poem: "The Beast Called Woke"

 

The Beast Called Woke

 

Donald J. Trump, the fearless President

of the United States, put his hands around

the neck of the beast called Woke and chocked,

and choked, and choked until the beast broke

from the moral imperative of his executive

orders—there are only two sexes, male and female;

no more men in woman’s sports; no more DEI

hires; an order declaring free speech and religious

liberty, and other morally restoring executive

orders from President Trump’s common sense

mandate to the American people; and within two

weeks of his 47^th presidency, a new spirit of hope

began to shine throughout the United States

of America, and the whole world.

 

New post-election Trumpian poem

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Thursday, February 6, 2025

New poem: "No Greater Vanity"

 

No Greater Vanity

 

Vanity of vanities, all under the sun

is vanity, sayeth the Preacher; but there

can be no greater vanity than the self-conceit

that some people have shown for Donald

J. Trump, the 45^th and 47^th President of the

United States, whose only conceit was to

believe in himself and the American Dream,

working his way through New York’s treacherous

real estate business and out of the invidious

snake pit of the radical left’s persecuting lawfare

that would have, as sure as God made little

green apples, destroyed a lesser person; but

why do they despise him so? Can’t they see

the obvious mote in their eye? Is that what’s

blinding these Trump deniers to the salubrious

effect his restorative executive orders are having

on the American people? Or are they just

too self-deluded to see straight?

 

New post-election Trumpian poem

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Sunday, February 9, 2025

New poem: "Gaza Bonanza"

 

Gaza Bonanza

 

They scoffed, as they always do,

when President Trump threw it out there

to chew on like a giant matzah ball,

his ridiculous concept of a Gaza bonanza

rising out of the ashes of their plundered

homeland, it became tantalizingly seductive

the more they pondered and reflected—all

of that purposeful work and personal benefit

it would generate for the Palestinians—within

fifteen to twenty years of devoted attention,

that desolate strip of cursed land could

well become a heavenly blessing like a rich

and prosperous Mediterranean riviera, proving

yet again the visionary genius of Donald

J. Trump, the 45^th and 47^th President

of the United States of America.

 

New post-election Trumpian poem

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Friday, February 7, 2025

New poem: "Just the Man and His Purpose"

 

 

Just the Man and His Purpose

 

The bluster is gone, no more buffoonery;

just the man and his purpose—Donald

J. Trump, the 45^thand 47^th President

of the United States of America, whose

obsessive goal was always to make America

great again. Nothing to prove anymore,

no need to justify and explain his sacred

mission of restoring his broken, ailing nation

from the pernicious, soul-crushing, radically

progressive woke ideology of the self-serving

Biden-Harris administration, and make his

beloved nation of the United States of America

safe, healthy, strong, and as free as the

Founding Fathers boldly envisioned

and astutely Constituted.

 

New post-election Trumpian poem

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Saturday, February 1, 2025

New poem: "Trump the Disruptor"

 

Trump the Disruptor

 

A President like no other,

Donald J. Trump the Disruptor

imposed a 25% tariff on imports

from Mexico and Canada, and 10%

on China, and this sent Canadian

politicians into an alarming panic

of circling their wagons to protect

our juvenile nation from a recession;

but assessing the situation from

a place of dispassionate awareness,

I thank Trump the Disruptor for stirring

the pot and waking my government

up to the real cost of safeguarding

our national independence,

and freedom.

 

New post-election Trumpian poem

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Monday, February 3, 2025

 

 

 

 

New poem: "Why Am I Me?"

 “Why Am I Me?”

 

Ernest “Papa” Hemingway was my favorite

writer, until I read John Hoyer Updike;

his lyrical prose made Heminway’s feel wanting,

and I never read him the same way again.

But it was more, so much more that pulled

me into the inimitable genius of Updike’s writing;

and when it dawned on me that he ferreted out

the sacred way of life in the “beautiful mundane”

of every one of his 140 stories published in the New

Yorker, and the rest elsewhere, exploring family,

marriage, infidelity, mortality, faith, and every little

experience, however mundane, that opened up

the sacred way of life that brought him a little closer

to the answer he was looking for, my heart went

out to him; but my heart also cried for him

when he realized that his talent was insufficient

to mine the spiritual gold that he needed to answer

the crucial question of his life, “Why am I me?”

And John Hoyer Updike, “America’s most distinguished

man of letters” and my favorite writer, died 85%

satisfied in his literary accomplishments,

but spiritually unrequited.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

New poem: "The Stupidity of Trump Deniers"

 

The Stupidity of Trump Deniers

 

We are as real in our inauthentic self

as we are false in our authentic self, the two

selves co-exist for our becoming; and when

either self is threatened—by the facts, and/or

the sound logic of common sense—we stand

in defense of who we are, or who we are not;

that’s the mystery of cognitive dissonance

that plagues all the Trump deniers who, despite

the sound policies that Trump executed on Day

One at the Oval Office, like shutting down

the southern border and rounding up illegal

criminal migrants and shipping them back home,

Trump deniers can’t help themselves and refuse

to give President Donald J. Trump any credit

for his mandate to make America great again;

that’s cognitive dissonance, and not only stupid,

but very dangerous to the democratic system

that the 47^th President of the United States

was called by his nation to preserve.

 

New post-election Trumpian poem

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Thursday, January 30, 2025

New poem: "The Clear Day Ahead"

 

The Clear Day Ahead

 

How long will it take to straighten

out all the kinks of one’s life,

to undo all those twists and knots

that keep us from falling asleep at night?

What a joy it will be when that day

comes when we won’t have any more worries

of what we did wrong, only the clear day

ahead with all of that wisdom to keep

our day straight.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Monday, January 27, 2025

New poem: "My Transcendent Function"

 

My Transcendent Function

 

My Trumpian poems are bread crumbs

that I leave behind on the trail of my life;

not because I expected anyone to take

up this obscure poet’s trail, but just to see

where my poetry muse would take me

on my new creative adventure. More often

than not, the first one or two lines would

come to me unbidden, and with confidence,

patience, and many years of perseverance

my trusty muse would favor me with the rest

of my poem. I’d like to take credit for these

creative efforts; but in truth, the mysterious

process of creative writing still eludes me;

and all the insights that I was given into

the storied life of President Donald J. Trump,

I have to attribute to what Carl Gustav Jung

called my “transcendent function,” which

is simply the way of poetry.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Sunday, January 12, 2025

 

Day One at the Oval Office

 

What do all of those foreign refugee migrants

want from the United States of America, land

of the brave, strong, and free if not to exploit

that great nation of every opportunity to make

a better life for themselves and their family?

But have they migrated legally to the United

States, or have they crossed President Biden’s

open southern border without regard to the law

of the nation? Why do they feel they should

be accepted by the American people when they

have not earned the right to be there? And why

would anyone oppose President Donald J. Trump

from deporting them back to where they came

from? And yet Americans, the woke-infested wing

of the Democratic Party, are willing to put at risk

and sacrifice American citizens to coddle and protect

millions of illegal migrants, many of them convicted

criminals, for no reason other than—what? What

drives those loonie lefties to turn against their fellow

citizens with their “sanctuary cities” and promises

they cannot keep? Infected by the toxic woke virus,

those pretentious social justice warriors cannot see

the harm they are doing to their great nation,

and on January 20, Day One at the Oval Office,

President Trump is going to issue executive orders

to close the porous southern border and snap

those woke fools out of their delusion.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Friday, December 27, 2024