Tag Archives: poetry

VIENNA GAME

VIENNA GAME

was playing against you
in the Vienna game

down to a tie-breaker
stakes couldn’t
have been
    higher

my light side
versus
      your dark side

my deepest dark
versus
   your brightest light

attack, defence
          defence, attack

my Freud to
            your Jung; Jung
to
  your Freud

Yin Yang
Yang Yin

                yanging
and yinging

               end to end
stuff
     up and down the board

lines moving      unmoving
broken                 unbroken

                                     lines
of our lives

two
     complementary strategies

right through to
          the desired endgame

KING OF SWORDS

KING OF SWORDS

War is
not part

of my nature.
Said
    many prayers
had it
excommunicated.

Hiroshima
      is not
my business, neither
is it in my chemistry

my molecules do not
resonate with that
Einstein equation, are
left stone cold by
Oppenheimer’s
        Gita paraphrasing

should you, when you
slip curved Katana blade into
                                     my hand

I become aware
of the gravity

way
     beyond my capacity

                         very thought
of shearing, slicing flesh

turning
    my fingers to sushi

                for a moment
but then the power
and the craft

      such beauty in steel

steeling my spirit to point
I can do anything

kill or
be killed       let those
ancient dice roll

for here
      the rush comes

goes

      and maybe wounds, maybe
death, perhaps
   slaughter and havoc

maybe
       not a scratch, blood
to expatiate

peace in my heart: who knows,
can hazard
       a guess how true

and longlasting

      sigh of regret even
in victory with the sheathing
of such
      a blade.

CLEANSE THE LAND

CLEANSE THE LAND

cleanse the land
clean
it good

render
it sacred

soon all
will flourish
death disappear
soil
  replace sand

time enough
to know what to
do with
    bone and
blood

history be written
to absorb the dead

new scripture for gods
better in our image

the meaning of what we did
lost in the philosophy of words

FINE MAN

FINE MAN

when you deliver
on the subject

pretty soon find myself
delving down into subtext
subatomic
    constructing the code
that lets me
read between the lines

need to do this
because regardless of
anomaly, overlooking
                  essential paradox

need to
  emerge from
              this astute

I want to be
  a better man

    not just an atom better
no, indeed, a fine man,
                            a
better
man by far

like Richard, without
his love
    of lovers,

one who can
    call the tune, fix
the rhythm of the Universe

tapping his bongos, sometimes
covering the page with
astounding hieroglyphs

prattling away
                finding his way
into the
heart of
  the labyrinth
      source of the problem

pattern suddenly grasped, and
gist of everything

want to see
        how it all interfaces
where
    the imagination?

look at this diagram
    carved into his desk, by
                              our
science
shaman

    now
visualized in tiles
on the Cal-Tec floor

ANCHOR

ANCHOR

I am
at anchor

around me deep currents
connive; slurry unseen

so what
    can better can worse
move you, break you
topple towers

    leave our whole world,
your world, my world,
                    entire planet
hanging
    by a thread?

thread my spool less than silken
still deep into the distance
way out
        towards forever

and all that ever amen you
feel duty bound to add

eyes closed
        fingers steepled

so much further than any horizon
beyond what eyes can see
mind
    believe.