The Mirror Test - Aug 21 2026

 

The Mirror Test

Aug 21 2026

The mirror test —

when a higher animal

sees its reflection

and comprehends “self”.

My dogs do no such thing.

They bark

peer behind

smear the glass with slop,

as they do the front window

when the mailman walks up.

They act like my children 

yet still know they’re dogs.

Light up when they see another,

either growling, glaring and baring their teeth,

or straining against the leash

and wagging their tails

eager to play.

Their sense of dogginess is innate;

they’ve never seen themselves

yet know their kind

are sure what they are.

While I have spent a lifetime 

trying to find myself.

I understand mirrors.

I know my genus

and that I’m sapien.

I have a first and last name.

Yet don’t recognize myself

in those around me,

feel unseen

and often apart.

I see my reflection in mirrored glass

with another at my back. 

The image recedes

figure shrinks

facial features blur.

A mirror test 

in which I see myself

getting smaller and smaller

until I disappear.  

Today’s “First Person” essay in the Globe was about a generic looking baby bird a child finds abandoned on a beach and takes home. It’s raised in a chicken coop with the laying hens and turns out to be a seagull. Toward the end of the piece, the author writes this line: “A seagull who was raised in a chicken coop still knew who she was.” (My italics.)

Which immediately reminded me of my dogs:  how they’ve only seen me — the all-powerful provider and master of their universe — and never seen themselves (although, of course, have seen each other), yet react so strongly to other dogs while ignoring people. They know they’re dogs. There is no confusion about their identity, their kind. It seems as innate as their drive to eat, reproduce, and groom themselves.

We, on the other hand, overthink everything. It’s all ambiguous, all existential angst:  meaning, purpose, and death; even personal identity.

Where It Will - Aug 19 2026

 

Where It Will

Aug 19 2026

I was body-slammed

hit blindside

 by tons of water

that flung my frail body

like a ragdoll in a maelstrom.

Left me flat on my back

with brine washing over me

as it drained from the rocky beach,

catching my breath

in the brief deceptive calm

before the next wave rolled in.

An ocean

gathering strength for thousands of miles,

and an inhospitable beach

on the the edge of a continent

  — an immovable object

where a wall of water stops cold.

White-flecked surf

boiled off the steely waves

from the top of smoothly arching curves.

There was the squawk of gulls

smell of the sea

bone-chilling cold,

an acrid drip of brine

slipping through my lips

and tickling my nose.

A few hours

at a rocky beach

on a hot summer day.

Where wave after wave

kept pounding the shore,

as if the earth

had a beating heart

with saltwater in its veins.

Just as steadily.

Just as they have

for countless millennia.

Just as the small furry mammals we once were

might have heard the same hypnotic surf

smelled the same salty spray.

If awe comes from feeling small

in the face of something timeless

and too vast to comprehend

then this must be it;

swept off my feet

on a bed of rounded pebbles

waiting for the next inexorable wave

to take me where it will.

Frankly, I dislike ocean swimming:  the smell, the waves, the saltiness. And who knows what you’ll find washed up by the tide! Give me a freshwater lake any day. So why this image came to me — a rocky N. Atlantic beach on the coast of Maine — I have no idea, especially since the last time I swam in the ocean was maybe 20 years ago. And that was in the Caribbean!

The theme, though, is predictably me:  the indifference of nature, the smallness of man, and my own insignificance. 

But big ideas are probably just an excuse to write in a way that captures feeling and describes an experience: a self-indulgent exercise in scene setting and evocative sentences. But since I doubt that descriptive poetry in and of itself can hold a reader or reward her investment in sticking with it, I hope I can offer something more impressionable than pretty pictures and a little story.

Blinders - Aug 18 2026

 

Blinders

Aug 18 2026

I tried hard to see something new today.

As if novelty

was in and of itself

a thing of worth.

As if I’ve been so jaded by life

I can feel the crust grow

and harden around me.

But it was all so familiar.

Which is when I closed my eyes

and listened,

reached out

and felt my way,

breathed deep, and held it,

sampling the air

like a wine-lover savours

a vintage year.

If seeing is believing

then I became a skeptic

and let my senses explain the world;

not by means of faith

but the laying on of hands

and the soft animal body

that centres itself

unthinkingly.

In the end, I crouched down

low as I could get

and saw through the eyes of a child.

All there was to wonder at

so nicely grounded

without my blinders on.

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/08/mary-oliver-documentary/688305/?gift=7KKUTeeJruMo0n11oQFrLnfzy0ibympV9J0bvPiaXxI

This lovely essay on the poet Mary Oliver’s life and work appeared in today’s Atlantic, prompted by an upcoming PBS documentary about her. I’ve referenced her work in at least one previous poem, and flatter myself that we bring a similar mindset to our writing. Although she achieves a beautiful simplicity, while my work tends to be too wordy, intellectualized, and complicated. 

Right after putting the article down, I felt the urge to write. (As I so often do when I’ve read my fill, doesn’t matter what.) Naturally, I couldn’t help but channel her. The influence should be clear: a relatively short poem (for me!), a theme of close observation, and simple language that — I can only hope — carries a subversive gravitas that helps it land with quiet but unexpected force. 

I wonder, if trapped in my usual style, would I ever have permitted so anodyne a word as “nicely”? Perhaps today, Mary Oliver made me brave. 

I have to admit, though, that this poem makes me feel a little inauthentic: not so much as if I’ve plagiarized (after all, I did write it), but more as if an AI had been asked to write something in her style. …Nevertheless, if you think it’s any good, I’ll gladly take credit!

Ugly Laws - Aug 17 2026

 

Ugly Laws

Aug 17 2026

There once were Ugly Laws

that kept the mutilated and maimed

deformed and diseased

from public view,

people who could be seen

as disgusting or unsightly

off the streets.

Must have been a lot of them

back when life was hard and short,

and the only resort

was prayer or sorcery

to cure whatever ailed you.

Now, we’re more discreet.

So while the beautiful get a lifetime pass

the plain

afflicted

and differently made

get shunned, ignored, passed over.

We are still as shallow,

but don’t say it out loud

let alone

pronounce it illegal. 

Am I an unsightly object?

we all wonder to ourselves.

Even those who’ve been blessed

by the accident of birth

are not immune;

we’re all dogged by self-doubt,

feel mirrors looking back

and passing silent judgment. 

But beauty never lasts.

And if age 

makes us all recede from view

the plain have little to lose,

while pretty women

struggle to adjust

to becoming invisible,

and handsome men

simply deny

  — denial

something all men do well.

If only surgery didn’t scar,

make-up could disguise

the toll of years.

These days, the streets are full of us

on public view

and no one looks twice.

Instead of ugly

we have character.

And instead of the halo

bestowed by beauty just because,

we have little to lose

and less to fear.

I read this in the weekend paper:  Ugly Laws - regulations that, according to the Encyclopedia of Disability, made it illegal for “any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself or herself to public view.”

My immediate thought was that nothing much has changed, and looks still determine a lot; we’re just more discreet about out it now.

Of course, there isn’t even an objective standard of beauty; a lot of it is cultural. Although it can be argued that there are universal signals: attributes like symmetry, fitness, and pleasing proportions; good hair, good skin.

Beauty confers a halo. We don’t just want to get close to beautiful people and receive their approval, we also automatically attribute to them abilities they don’t possess, a higher level of competence than they merit, and virtues they fall short of.

Anyway, thoughts aside, how could I resist trying my hand at a poem when gifted a phrase like “ugly laws”?!!

I certainly wouldn’t call myself ugly, despite the inclusive “us” that begins the final stanza. But still, I’ve lived all my life with at least the usual self-consciousness, the niggling envy, and the usual good days and bad — depending on good or bad light, a candid photograph, or an incidental comment taken to heart. 

Too Far Gone - Aug 15 2026

 

Too Far Gone

Aug 15 2026

There’s rain, drizzle, spit.

Torrent and downpour

Biblical flood.

Frozen and windblown,

intermittent,

Irish mist.

Or simply

a threatening sky.

I see clouds on the horizon

coming this way

just as they predicted.

Anticipatory rain, like grief,

because we know it always comes 

eventually 

and also how it ends.

This dry soil is impervious,

too hard-packed

to soak it up.

Like the thirst of a dying man

who’s too weak to swallow,

too far gone

to feel the urge.

The life-giving rain

we desperately need

but fear will slip past,

like false hope

when they’ve done all they can.

Or finally come,

bringing lightning

to tinder dry woods,

swelling rivers

parched by drought

and drown the unwary.

But in the end, sooner or later

there’s no stopping rain.

Sometimes sun-showers

or just a light mist.

And sometimes a reckoning

when the heavens open

and you’re too far gone to swim.

Pure stream of consciousness. 

I started by thinking about all the kinds of rain. So if there are 40 words for snow (which may or may not be true), why not for rain? This gave me the opening stanza. (Too bad I had to skip “cats and dogs”: couldn’t make it fit without shoehorning it in!)

Then I thought that a welcome rain for some — farmers, for one — is a disaster for others —wedding planners, sun bathers. And, of course, in this time of climate change, heat domes, and killer drought, there is its lack.

When “anticipatory” rain came to me, I immediately thought about anticipatory grief, something that’s been preoccupying me as my beloved dog is showing signs of her age. 

So rain is not only more than one thing, it also becomes in this poem a metaphor for death. 

  . . . But ultimately, to be honest, it doesn’t matter what I write. Really, what I enjoy is simply putting words together and composing sentences. If I also happen to say something worthwhile, all the better. 

Instead of the News - Aug 11 2026

 

Instead of the News

Aug 11 2026

My life gets smaller.

As I age,

and complacency closes in

like a belt cinching tighter

a narrowed eye.

As I begin to fully understand

my insignificance 

against the vastness of the universe

and the magnitude of time.

As the world seems more and more consumed

by endless wars

needless cruelty

and a ravaged earth.

Which may be why

I find myself retreating into daily life

domesticity

my own company.

Thinking back

instead of planning and dreaming,

reading memoir and biography

instead of the news.

Curiously, the world goes on.

Turns out I didn’t need to stay informed

cultivate opinions

or feel so upset, incensed, repelled.

Because it was all in my head.

Because being so serious

didn’t move a mind

or change a thing,

left no impression

and will leave no legacy.

Because generations succeed

only to forget

as people drop right and left

however they lived,

idols topple

temples crumble

and tectonic plates shift.

Yes, I cared, even tried

at least a little

if that’s any defence.

But either way

the sun rose and set,

leaves budded, then fell,

and year followed year

indifferent to me.

The earth went on spinning

the galaxy circled

and the universe churned

as it’s always done;

cataclysms

of creative destruction 

too vast for me to see

too big to comprehend.

A self-indulgent meditation on the futility I suspect many of us feel. 

But it's not totally negative. I think it expressed a becoming humility. And ends with a sense of wonder, even awe.

Perfect Zen - Aug 9 2026

 

Perfect Zen

Aug 9 2026



It’s true, we live in the perpetual present;

most everything has changed

but it’s still “now”

and will always be.

How paradoxical

to combine those two words,

since nothing is forever

and now

too fleeting to measure.

A perpetual present

when time stops,

the past has been lost,

and the future

is merely theoretical. 

Because isn’t it always so?

Nonexistent,

except for what you fear

or wish for.

I marvel at such stillness.

Breathe out, and forget your last breath.

Close your eyes, and let the sun stop

just where it is

earth no longer spin.

Assume the position

and hold yourself there,

an inanimate object

undistracted by thought

or rumination.

Distil down time

smaller and smaller

to the fundamental particle

you fully inhabit,

indivisible

and infinitely small.

Where no now becomes then,

no future beckons,

and there’s no reckoning

or ultimate end.

The perfect Zen

of unfettered existence. 

I saw those two words, and immediately thought that while life feels that way, it would also have to be timeless for “perpetual present” to be true. 

And don’t those two concepts contradict: “perpetual” implying something infinite, while “now” is indivisibly small?

I suppose the only true perpetual present would be one in which you completely forget the past: when it would feel as if there was only a single “now”, not a continuous string of different ones. There’s a movie about this, and for the protagonist it’s more nightmarish and trapped than sublimely content and enlightened.

While life is a succession of “now”s, it’s only in the momentary one that you’re truly present. So, in a sense, there really is a perpetual now. Except that the “now” is always different and the only constant is you:  a pearl necklace of “now”s in which you are the string. 

Anyway, I started to noodle around with the phrase, almost immediately abandoned the effort — too bloodless a poem, the phrase stopped seeming as interesting, and I’ve already written to many about the passage of time — then eventually revisited and revised until I came up with this. I’ll leave it to you to decide if this poem was worth pursuing.

You could see it as having something to do with meditation. Which is not something I do; and when I’ve briefly tried, don’t do well. They call it “mindfulness”. But “mindlessness” seems more accurate to me for the state of detachment meditation ideally achieves.

Municipal Pool - Aug 7 2026

 

Municipal Pool

Aug 7 2026

In the municipal pool

almost all is bared.

Even the one-piece with the ruffled skirt

the old lady wears

shows more of her than anyone’s seen

since her husband left

for someone younger.

Yet almost no one cares;

there’s no self-consciousness 

when everyone’s flaws

are on public display.

Of course, the adolescent boys still strut and flex

pull in their stomachs

and act like they don’t care,

despite how unsure

they really feel.

The teenaged girls

in skimpy bikinis they’re too young to wear

have no idea

this is the best they’ll ever look.

They cluster together

like gazelle on the Serengeti

as if numbers will protect them,

giggling girlishly

and flirting with the boys.

There are middle aged men

who seem perfectly content

with sagging bellies and body hair

sprouting sporadically

from pallid skin;

old geezers

with twiggy arms and veiny legs

sporting Speedos

that have seen better days;

and the aquarobics ladies

who try hard to stay fit,

but would much prefer lunch with the girls

and a second glass of wine.

And kids of all ages

who are mercifully oblivious

as to how they appear,

cannonballing giddily

and running on the deck

despite the lifeguards’ loud slow downs.

The municipal pool

is the great equalizer.

We’re all average 

or think we are,

all judging ourselves

but not very hard,

and all too preoccupied 

with having fun

to care that we aren’t body builders

or movie stars.

I slip into the pool

to a shock of cool

and too much chlorine,

goggles fogging over

and baggy suit

billowing up around my legs.

Start counting lengths

up and down the lane.

All by myself

in the welcome quiet

of this water world,

where every difference 

looks pretty much the same.

Here’s a note that accompanied the first draft when I shared it with a friend, who also happens to be a much better swimmer than me.

I was in the pool yesterday (Thursday) — fantastic weather for a lake swim, but lousy timing for a pre-booked appointment, and I had no choice but to be in town.

The same damn thing is happening: in the lake, my stroke feels powerful, fluid, and painless, as well as tireless; but then I get in a lane with the finger-breaking buoy lines and head-bashing bulkheads, and I must tense up or somehow alter my stroke so I feel slow and my shoulder immediately starts to hurt. You ever hear of anything like this in anyone else?!!

Anyway, it was busy there, with more than the usual assortment of ages and body types. (Including this “old geezer”!) So at least I got this poem out of it!   . . . No title as yet. Suggestions welcome. 

Paper Trails - Aug 5 2026

 

Paper Trails

Aug 5 2026



Just follow the money

  — the moolah, lucre, scratch

greenbacks and lolly

Grease their palm

wet their beak

slip a little sweetener.

Don’t be shy

with the baksheesh, boodle, or bung

  — the usual bribe

along with the wink of an eye

and surreptitious nod.

Because it’s all greed

and shameless shenanigans.

Sure, you can’t take it with you,

but while you can

indulge in every luxury

corruption be damned.

And if there is an afterlife 

and everlasting judgement

you’ll just talk your way out.

Because the pearly gates are a fraud

and St. Paul can be bought

like everyone else;

if not with gold or T-bills

than with silver-tongued lies

and phoney contrition.

No one is innocent

we all have our price. 

Just a quick fun one. More wordplay than serious cynical social commentary. Because I’m not quite this cynical. At least not yet!

A Cure for Death - Aug 3 2026

 

A Cure for Death

Aug 3 2026

This lab is working on a cure for death

he matter-of-factly said

as we breezed by

on our tour of the institute. 

All of us living forever?

Bad idea, you might say,

but on your deathbed

will likely want it anyway.

You can cure meat

leprosy

and even a broken heart,

but is “cure” the best word for death?

As if immortality was natural

and death the malady.

Because for most of the universe 

the normal state of being

is insentient, inert

 — dead stuff, like asteroids

and interstellar gas.

While for all living things, at least on earth

life is a fleeting blip

in an oblivion

of eternal non-existence

 — the billions of years

before you were born,

the billions after you’re gone.

Which I try imagining,

as if to imagine

could make it easier.

I think of a sleep

you don’t wake up from,

a drugged and dreamless sleep

that never ends.

Or better yet

those eons that preceded me,

the utter void of nothingness

I only know there even was

because science says so.

So I accept death,

however reluctantly

however much I fear it.

When my selfness will be expunged

and my atoms returned

to the star stuff they once were;

the natural state

of inanimate matter

from which we arose.

We lucky few

who have been privileged, in our brief unlikely lives

to witness creation,

able to feel

the surprise, wonder, and awe

of the universe.

Who get to create meaning

as if there’s a reason we were born,

even if it’s nothing more

than wishful thinking

and self-importance

instead of truly why.

Not a departure, but a return.

No afterlife

no cure.



This started off as a shot in the dark. A promising line came to me — “a cure for death” — and I immediately thought of the sociological implications of everyone living forever, the possible psychological burden, and the odd choice of “cure”: as if death wasn’t natural and life was the rule.

But I expected little, because I could see it quickly turning pretentious, tendentious, and too philosophical:  a topic more suited to prose, with its dense reasoning and linear exposition, than to poetry’s more allusive and idiosyncratic style. 

So I’m pleased I stuck with it, and with how it turned. It expresses my materialist world view — my atheism, my tendency toward a bemused nihilism, my acceptance of my insignificance — without losing the light touch that would lose all but the most committed reader.

While in the poem I say I fear death, it’s really dying that I fear. And that’s also why I put “likely” into the line “will likely want it anyway”. Because I know people can reach a state where they welcome death, even wish for it:  an escape from torture; a reprieve from pain, shortness of breath, helplessness and dependency.  

I also state there’s no afterlife. (Of course, understanding that there’s no way to definitively know!) But I do understand why people console themselves with the belief. If I was capable of faith, I would as well. Unfortunately, unplugging a brain is like unplugging a computer: it doesn’t keep running, and there is no mind — let alone a soul — separate from the squishy stuff inside your skull, that does.

Between writing the first draft of this, and now tweaking it in its 3rd (4th?) iteration, I read this article (published in the Atlantic). I was struck by how Lightman calculates the astronomical odds against one’s unique existence — one hundred thousand billion to one — as well as the potential permutations of DNA — more possible combination than there are atoms in the observable universe. Our brief unlikely lives indeed! Emphasis on the unlikely.

https://www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2026/06/the-ordinary-miracle-of-existing/687351/?gift=7KKUTeeJruMo0n11oQFrLiR7OFhp6UGHKkiI3GtXWb

Hermetic - Aug 2 2026

Hermetic

Aug 2 2026

I guard my privacy

remain inscrutable.

I am a blank slate;

I might tempt them to project

but give nothing away.

Behind the curtain

closed door

high walls.

Behind the steely silence

that doesn't break.

But while curtains can be drawn

doors locked

and walls are impervious to light

faces give themselves away.

There's the clenched jaw

furrowed brow

haunted look in the eyes,

small beads of sweat

wiped furtively off.

Silence speaks loudly

when you carefully watch.

The door creaks shut

curtains swish

walls loom.

It's dark inside.

The silence is deafening.

Not autobiographical. There’s nothing embarrassing in my search history, no bodies buried in the backyard! 

But I glanced at an article and “behind the curtain” caught my eye. It struck me as a promising first line. (Where it didn’t end up staying.)

And after all, a lot does go on behind closed doors. That thought sometimes occurs to me walking down a quiet suburban street and looking at the succession of closed doors and darkened windows. Who knows how others live? What goes on, what secrets are kept?