New poem: "The Flip-flop"

 

The Flip-flop

 

They don’t know why it happens,

but a very strange thing can happen

to the human psyche commonly

referred to as “the flip-fop,” when

an otherwise normal person becomes

the opposite of what they used to be,

like the podcaster Tucker Carlson

who now baffles his friend Dave

Ruben; but it’s not a mystery, really.

Their false shadow self just came

out to play, and it will not go away

until it has had its day.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Sunday, December 21, 2025

 

New poem: "Nature's Most Complete Man"

 

Nature’s Most Complete Man

 

“Man must complete what nature cannot

finish,” said the mystic philosopher George

Ivanovich Gurdjieff; but how far can man

evolve on his own? “He has to be the most

complete man that Nature can create,” I said

to myself, as I listened to President Trump

speaking in Pennsylvania as he launched his

campaign for the midterm elections; and what

came to my mind was the poet Goethe’s famous

line from his play Faust: “Two souls, alas, are

housed within my breast; and each will wrestle

for mastery there.” Jesus said, “the kingdom

will come when the two will be made one.” But

I saw no wrestling in Trump’s proud chest as he

spoke about the economy and what he had done

so far to make America safe, strong, wealthy,

and great again. What I saw instead was Nature’s

most complete man who spoke for both souls

in his chest, neither one denying the other the

right to be heard; and the longer he spoke,

the more I fell in love with the wonder

of Trump’s paradoxical nature.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Tuesday, December 9, 2025

 

 

New Poem: "They"

 

“They”

 

The troubled soul is literary gold,

and literature will never run out

of this mineral. Calling herself “they,”

she alchemized her grief away in

ardent verse. Listening to Gabrielle

Calvocoressi on the New Yorker

Radio Hour, my favorite writer John

Updike’s favourite magazine, I

was moved to say, “It’s going to be

a wonderful day, knowing that life

is always mending the troubled soul

with the wisdom of poetry.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Sunday, December 14, 2025

 

New Poem: "Trump Uncensored"

 

 Trump Uncensored

 

Not that they were always on, but

President Trump has taken the gloves

off for the midterm elections, as he

clearly demonstrated when he launched

his first rally speech at Mount Pocono,

Pennsylvania, talking about that “stupid

son of a bitch”— which was better,

“sleepy or crooked Joe Biden?”—who

was ruining the country, and not allowing

any more “garbage people” from those

“shithole countries” like Somalia. Trump

uncensored was a joy to listen to, and

I laughed my heart out listening to him

speaking to his fellow Americans who

voted him back into the Oval Office

to make America great again.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Tuesday, December 9, 2025

New poem: "A Realist and Not a Racist"

 

A Realist and Not a Racist

 

When the billion-dollar Somali fraud scandal

in Minnesota’s social service system broke,

the radical left wing of the Democratic Party

branded President Trump a racist for calling

Somalia a “garbage country” and not wanting

any more Somalis in America when in fact

Transparent International, a non-government

organization, through its annual international

Corruption Perception Index, consistently rates

Somalia as one of the most corrupt countries

in the world; proving yet again that Donald J.

Trump, self-made billionaire and 45^th and 47^th

President of the United States, who has the wit

and wisdom to cut through the crap and get

to the bottom of things, is a realist

and not a racist,

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Thursday, December 4, 2025

New poem: "Is Gurdjieff Still Relevant Today?"

 

 

Is Gurdjieff Still Relevant Today?

 

Is Gurdjieff still relevant today,

the mystic philosopher who influenced

so many and broke the hearts of more;

the charismatic teacher of the Fourth

Way Teaching, the Work, the System, 

“esoteric Christianity,” and the “way

of the sly man” who believed that we

are not born with an immortal soul,   

that Nature has done all it can for us,

and that we have to take evolution into

our own hands to create our own soul

and complete what Nature cannot finish,

is he still relevant today with all that

information online on healing our

broken spirits with past-life

regression therapy?

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Thursday, December 4, 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 egocentric 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: "Nietzsche's Deception"

 

 

Nietzsche’s Deception

 

While reading Rudolph Steiner’s book

Friedrich Nietzshe, Fighter for Freedom,

I got a piercing insight into the philosopher’s

morbid soul that I scribbled into marginalia,

as I often do with books I read: “Nietzsche

refuses to deal with the karmic issue of his

own deception.” I knew what my muse was

saying, but I googled my insight all the same;

and AI instantly generated a fulsome context

of my insight into Nietzsche’s tortured life:

“In a spiritual or karmic context, a person who

refuses to deal with the karmic issue of their

own deception is choosing to remain in a cycle

of negativity, pain, and self-sabotage, delaying

spiritual growth and inviting the same challenges

to recur in their life or future lives,” as Rudolph

Steiner’s book had brought to light. Nietzsche

went mad, not because his uber ego Zarathustra

had declared God dead and we had killed Him,

which incurred a karmic debt that broke his

spirit; but because the eternal Nietzsche that he

willed himself to be could never be the Nietzsche

that God intended, and it did not matter that he

saw through the hypocrisy of man’s behavior,

Nietzsche adamantly refused to deal with

the karmic issue of his own deception

that silenced his angry soul

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Monday, November 24, 2025

 

 

 

New poem: "Opening Windows"

 

Opening Windows

 

“Many good poems have a kind

of widow-moment in them—they change

their direction of gaze in a way that

suddenly opens a broadened landscape

of meaning and feeling,” said Jane

Hirshfield in “Ten Windows.” Never

knowing what I’m going to see, I love

opening windows with my poetry. A

fleeting thought or image may come

to me, like a bird lighting on a tree; and

if I don’t catch the bird before it flies

away, I may never see what that window

would have opened up to me

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Sunday, November 16, 2025

New poem: "The Great River of Life"

 

 

The Great River of Life

 

Watching a podcast this morning—Paul VanderKlay’s

“Comparing Notes on the Rise and Remains of the Jordan

Peterson Phenomenon,” a zealous young podcaster talking

with the older, seasoned podcaster—an image suddenly

popped into my mind of two very spirited talkative men

in a canoe paddling upstream in a river of very fast-flowing

water; and no matter how hard they paddled, they weren’t

getting anywhere. The poetic image spoke to me, telling

me what I refused to see. As hard as they paddled against

the currents of the Great River of Life, I could see they

weren’t making any headway, despite all the progress they

felt they were making. I knew this, because with Gurdjieff’s

imperative of conscious effort and intentional suffering

I had “worked” my way through the most powerful currents

of the Great River of Life and found my own individual way

to the headwaters of my true self in the Body of God, the

Great Ocean of Love and Mercy where all new souls come

from and are destined to return to when life has made us

ready. And as I watched the eager podcasters paddling like

mad comparing notes on the trail-blazing iconoclast whose

book “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” inspired

my own book “One Rule to Live By: Be Good,” I saw that I

was wasting my time; and I stopped watching the podcast

and got on with the rest of my day, reading some Hirshfield

poetry from her new book The Asking, editing my new book,

We May be Tiny but We’re Not Small for an hour or so, and

then I went out to our back yard and blew the new batch

of fall leaves that the howling winds had shed from

our stubborn oak trees last night.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

 

 

New poem: "Their Moral Conceit"

 

Their Moral Conceit

 

How smug the woke are in their moral conceit,

believing they are right and everyone wrong

who believes President Trump is making America

great again, failing to see all the good he’s already

done by closing down the southern border to illegal

immigrants who only want to realize their dream

of a better life in the land of endless opportunity; how

smug the woke are in their moral conceit, impeding

President Trump from cleaning out sanctuary cities

harboring illegal immigrants; how smug the woke are

in their moral conceit, believing it’s acceptable for

transgender men to compete in women’s sports

and undress in woman`s lockers; how smug the woke

are in their moral conceit, defending DEI policy

over meritocracy in academia, the armed forces, and

marketplace; how smug the woke are in their moral

conceit, calling President Trump a fascist authoritarian

bully when all he`s doing is restoring those values

that made America great in the first place.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Sunday, November 9, 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New poem: " "Caught in the Headlights"

 

 Caught in the Headlights

 

The vast empty words of what some people say

was brought home to me the other day when

I listened to a famous Hollywood actor, whose

movies I’ve always enjoyed, talking about the 45^th

and 47^th President of the United States in a way

that disparaged Donald J. Trump’s character (and

his own); and I could not believe that this respected

Hollywood actor and practicing Buddhist believed

what he was saying, his words were so blindly

devoid of the love, compassion, truth, understanding

forgiveness, and especially the bubbling joy that

his Guru and longtime close friend, His Holiness

the Dalai Lama, was famous for. Caught in the

headlights of this poet’s perspective, this famous

Hollywood woke actor and ersatz Buddhist

had nothing more to say to me.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Friday, October 31, 2025

 

New poem: "Who We Are Meant to Be"

 

Who We Are Meant to Be

 

“Love is who you are” were the first words

that Jeshua spoke to Glenda Green, the artist

who painted Christ’s portrait “The Lamb

and the Lion,” initiating Glenda into the secret

way of life that parts the veil of the baffling

mystery of falling in love, our soul’s natural path

for growth and self-fulfilment; so, regardless

how deep or shallow our love may be for one

another, love is the only way to fulfill our

destined purpose of becoming who we

are meant to be, our true self.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Thursday, October 30, 2025

New poem: "Ego's Last Words"

 

Ego’s Last Words

 

It’s always been this way,

life with all of its ups and downs

and twists and turns, joys and sorrows

mingling like there’s no tomorrow,

a never-ending enantiodromiac play

of being and becoming who we are

meant to be; and when the final curtain

comes down, ego’s last words have

always been, “All I ever wanted

was to be seen.”

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Tuesday, November 3, 2025

New poem: "The Secret Way of Life"

 The Secret Way of Life

 

I have FB friends who hate Donald J. Trump,

the 45^th and 47^th President of the United States.

I mean, really hate the man, calling him a “racist,”

“fascist,” “Hitler,” “dictator,” and “authoritarian

bully.” Their animus is so deep that it scares me;

and I don’t know what to do about it. So, as I do

when life puzzles me, I ask my muse, my higher

self, to tell me; and my oracle replied: “Hate

is in their blood, and the only cure is a transfusion

of love. Love them with your all, in the sacred

knowledge that love is who we are; and one day,

if not in this life a subsequent incarnation, they

too will be called by the secret way of life

to be their true, loving self.”

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Tuesday, October 14, 2025

New poem: "Attended by a Single Hound"

 

Attended by a Single Hound

 

Life is an individual journey

of self-discovery, and it doesn’t

matter how adventurous or boring

you may think it to be, it’s the only

story worth telling. Not because

it’s your story, however adventurous

or boring; but because it’s every

soul’s story. “Adventure most unto

itself, /The soul condemned to be—

Attended by a single hound/ Its

own identity,” said he mystic poet

of Amherst, Massachusetts.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Sunday, October 5, 2025

New poem: "Puzzled No More"

 

Puzzled No More

 

I was at first, but I’m puzzled no more,

why the woke despise the Donald, 45^th

and 47^th President of the United States,

the man who shut down the southern

border that let illegal migrants, criminals,

and ne’er-do-wells into the country, who’s

shutting down sanctuary cities and deporting

illegals back to where they came from, who

reclaimed gender integrity and meritocracy

in the armed forces, and marketplace. So,

it’s not because he’s doing the right thing   

for the American people; it’s because

the woke refuse to see their own perfidy

and adamantly deny President Trump

the credit the deserves for MAKING

AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Friday, October 10, 2025

New poem: "Resetting History."

 

Resetting History

 

HE DID IT!

He brought the hostages

back home, free from Hamas,

the terrorist captors who waged

eternal war on the Israeli people.

Was this why he was spared

the assassin’s bullet in Butler,

Pennsylvania; this, and getting

men out of women’s sports, not

to mention choking the life out

of the Woke Beast? Was President

Donald J. Trump called by God

to reset history?

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Tuesday, October 14, 2025

New poem: "America's Man of Letters"

 

 America’s Man of Letters

 

He died sufficiently satisfied,

but unfulfilled; unable to answer

the crucial question of his life: “Why

am I me?” But the only way out of life

was through life, which my favorite

author tried to do by giving the mundane

its beautiful due, in poetry, short stories,

novels, and other genres; but it wasn’t

enough to see him through the darkness

of life that obscured his light. “For life’s

a shabby subterfuge, /And death is real,

and dark and huge,” he wrote in his

Endpoint poem “Requiem,” just days before

dying of inoperable stage IV lung cancer

with the song of life still longing to be

sung. RIP John Hoyer Updike.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Thursday, October 9, 2025