Poem for the week: "The Tripster"

The Tripster

We were talking about the Trickster

over morning coffee the other day,

how it slips into our life to trip us up,

and without thinking, I called him

Tripster instead of Trickster, and in

my Freudian slip I caught the soul of

this nebulous entity that hangs about

the ethers waiting impatiently to trip

us up and make our life miserable

so it can feed off the negative energy

of our anger and frustration and grow

bigger and stronger just to have more

power over us; and as we sipped our

coffee, we both came to see, with   

surprising simultaneity, that unless

we changed our attitude with the way

we treat the world, less demanding

and more forgiving, the Tripster will

always have permission to trip us up

and keep our day from unfolding

as we would like it to.

Sunday poem: "The Great Leveler"

The Great Leveler

I awoke this morning with a glimmer

that only poets and mystics are blessed

to experience, an insight that rendered

everyone equal, and no amount of money,

power, talent, or social status can keep

the great leveler from contracting the

world with the coronavirus responsible

for the global pandemic that’s taking

people down like dominos (627 people

died in Italy yesterday) and will not be

neutralized by the appropriate vaccine

until the great leveler has awakened the

world to the existential reality of our

inevitable mortality; then, and only then

will we shift our priorities from our selfish

exploitation of nature and our fellow man

to mindful resourcefulness and equitable

sharing and make the world a better

place to raise our children.