Yin and Yang

A little bit zen again (or taoist I guess)...nothing can exist without its opposite...

Yin and Yang

To catch your reflection in
    a stinking puddle
      muck mirror image
         and the pristine sky behind

Or glimpse a road kill
    in full stench, its architecture
         peeping through its skin
             amid the gently blowing roadside grass

To thrill to see a hawk
     snatch up its prey
          yet know the converse agony
               of beak-ripped dying flesh

To see the ugliness and beauty
      the life and death entwined
          and know its seamless unity
               Designerless design

Onion Zen

Feeling a bit zen when I wrote this...

Onion

Once I thought an onion was just an onion
And then I marvelled at its nested mystery
Now I think an onion is an onion
But the whole world is an onion...

Reaper

This is another poem I wrote in 1998. I was trying to capture a sort of Celtic feel in it and I am pretty happy that I did

Reaper

I wish I could harvest the red of your lips
I wish I could harvest the blue of your eyes
I wish I could harvest the gold of your hair
But the time of the harvest is gone

I wandered the land and I wandered the seas
I sought with my eyes and I sought with my words
I searched for the clue that would give me the key
But the time for the seeking is done

I buried my love in the dark fertile earth
I buried my life and I buried my soul
I buried my hope and I buried my heart
But the time of my mourning lives on

I'll see many harvests, I'll wander the land
But I'll never again find the love I found here
I'll mourn for her death till my own death's at hand
And the grass will grow deep with the years,
Yes the grass will grow deeper than tears.

Two Lives

I wrote this poem way back in 1998. But only a couple of months ago I saw a documentary which showed that according to the latest research the heart actually does have a little brain of its own, comprising about 40,000 neurons (about as smart as a slug), so maybe some memories do pass from the donor to the recipient:

Two Lives

It was over in an instant
live one moment, dead the next
a careless pointless instant
his accidental death...

She was young, some would say pretty
she was barely in her teens
he would have loved to give his heart
to this school-girl in blue jeans

To feel it beat within her breast
the warmth on her face of the sun
to feel it leap with all the joys
of a lifetime still to come

They say embodied in the heart
the donor's tastes live on
anonymously yearning
though the giver's life is gone

well...she finds she now likes chicken
and the sometimes football game
though she still likes hanging
with her friends and walking in the rain.

His family will mourn their loss
while hers will celebrate
rejoicing in this second chance
the end of a long wait

He'll never now have children
He'll never have a wife, but
He gave her the gift of a lifetime
He gave her the gift of a life.

American Sentences

In Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within, Kim Addonizio describes American sentences, a kind of American haiku, a short poem which often records a poignant moment. Here are a few of mine:

Father and daughter walking the dogs
He holds them back, they pull her on


The old couple, both slow
He stops for her to catch up
And takes her hand


The joyful eyes of the little girl
Smiling quietly just because...


The dog barks at the dog barking in the distance
At the dog barking in the distance


A little girl with her mother
Climbing the steps at Borders singing as she climbs
The faster she climbs, the faster she sings