New poem: "A Doctrine Uttered in Secret"

 

A Doctrine Uttered in Secret

 

“There is a doctrine uttered in secret,”

said the Greek philosopher Socrates,

“that man is a prisoner who has nor right

to open the door of his prison and run

away.” A young boy was out learning to ride

his two-wheeler, doing much better than

his mother expected, and he proudly boasted

to a neighboring woman out for her morning

stroll, “When I was big, I knew how to ride

my bike really good.” But “Shades of the prison

house begin to close /Upon the growing Boy,”

said William Wordsworth, in his poem Ode

to Immortality, catching a mystical glimpse

into this doctrine uttered in secret; and all too

soon, it will “fade into the light of common

day,” and the young boy will grow up

never knowing he is in prison.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Thursday, June 26, 2025

New poem: "Oh, What a Place to Be"

 

Oh, What a Place to Be

 

Oh, what a place to be,

knowing that there is no right

or wrong way in life, that every

path leads to the self eventually;

and it does not matter if someone

is an asshole or a nice person,

that’s the path their soul chose

to take to fulfill its destined purpose

of becoming whole and complete,

just as God intended.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

New Poem: "When the Magic Happens"

 

When the Magic Happens

 

When the magic happens

I’m always surprised, because

the relief I feel is so satisfying

that it leaves me wondering

if the magic will ever happen

again; but it always does. When

the media fills my head again,

with all the nonsense and mayhem

that’s going on out there, my muse

comes to my rescue with a new

poem that sorts out my confusion

and puts my world back into

perspective again.

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Tuesday, June 10, 2024

New poem: "A Mishmash of Gibberish"

 

A Miasma of Gibberish

 

Listening to a philosopher on CBC’s

Ideas program at 4. A. M. this morning

talking about a philosopher whose philosophy

began to sound to me more and more like

a miasma of gibberish, I listened patiently,

hoping to make sense of Hegel’s dialectic;

but the more I listened to the philosopher’s

explication, the more confused I became,

and I turned the radio off. I could have

turned to another station, but I had to give

my mind a rest from her desperate attempt

 to make sense of the Hegelian perspective

on the I of the self, which so boggled my

mind that it reminded me why I dropped

out of university where I had gone to study

philosophy to find an answer to the central

question of my life, “Who am I?”

 

Composed in Tiny Beaches,

Georgian Bay, Southcentral, Ontario

Thursday, May 29, 2025