Searching - Oct 23 2026

 

Searching

Oct 23 2026

I am looking for a small orange ball

in a tangle of brush

in a crush of overarching trees.

Roots underfoot

claw at my feet.

The slope is uneven

ground soft

and light not for long

as the evening sky darkens.

The dogs, who have lost the scent

race excitedly,

tracing rough circular paths

with their noses to the ground

and ears pinned back,

at times

leaping like tightly sprung cats

ambushing prey.

On 4 graceful legs, they seem to levitate

over dense scrub

rotting logs

and through the thick scrim of branches

sprouting from the ground.

If not guided by some 6th sense

then by the grace of a god

who watches over the innocent

— the young children

and dumb animals

who can’t fend for themselves

and don’t know any better. 

While I am earthbound

and not so innocent,

slipping, tripping, and mincing my way,

ducking under branches

and bulling through the overgrowth. 

I watch, they smell.

But in the dark, they see better than me,

and their superhuman noses

work just as well.

So while I concede,

they were born to retrieve

and will run until their hearts explode;

single-mindedly

relentlessly

and sometimes even recklessly.

Because to my dogs

who live in the perpetual now

a small orange ball

well-chewed, and covered in slobber

is all that matters in the world

the meaning of life.

Something I’ve been searching for, most of mine.

Bullet Points - Oct 22 2026

 

Bullet Points

Oct 22 2026

• Just give me the gist
• skinny
• big picture.
• The lowdown, without the clutter,
• the cut-to-the-quick
• minus the puffery.

• The executive summary,
• distilled
• point-by-point;
• because important people like me
• can’t wait.

• I’m too impatient for detail
• nuance
• earnest argument.
• Just tell-me-like-it-is
• without the prolixity,
•   —  simple words
• a kid would understand.

• Because I count on getting the time I save
• back at the end.
• My plan to beat death
• barrelling ahead
• right on schedule!

Ways of Missing - Oct 21 2026

 

Ways of Missing

Oct 21 2026

I don’t mean missing out

or that missing tooth.

Not missed opportunities,

and not the bus that left without you,

standing in the rain

breathing exhaust. 

I mean the other ways.

How you can pass on the street

and miss each other

looking down at your phone.

How you can miss someone

who was once a friend,

is the lover who left,

or was taken from you

too soon;

whether by slow dementia

some chronic disease 

or sudden death.

How you can go missing yourself.

Perhaps to escape

failure, abuse, neglect,

or for just a change of air

  — a time-out

from the struggle and stress

of daily life.

Sometimes, even missing yourself,

putting distance

between the old version

and the reinvented you

you’re either working toward

or hoping to

  —  this time, for sure. 

And then there’s the girl

who disappeared one night

never to be seem again. 

The missing person 

that keeps haunting you

with guesswork, and dark conjecture.  

Like, why, and where, and when  . . .

  . . . The how, you dare not think about. 

Is she a Jane Doe

in some unmarked grave, 

sex slave in Dubai,

or homeless in Seattle?

A life left unanswered

perhaps for years.

To law enforcement 

a missing person is no priority.

The police will suggest she ran away,

remind you

that sovereign adults

answer only to themselves.

Trouble is, not only do you need their help,

the brush-off hurts. 

When the helplessness

feeds despair.

When all you can do

in the uncertainty

is imagine the unthinkable.

But you fear resolution as well.

Because while not knowing is hard

closure can hurt;

when knowing the worst

makes you miss them all the more.

This poem was inspired by a beautiful story I heard on The Moth — one of my favourite podcasts. Here’s a link:  https://www.themoth.org/stories/episodes/mortality

It’s the final story, and you can find it by fast forwarding to the 34 minute 10 second mark. (The others are also good listening!)

Assisted Living - Oct 19 2026

 

Assisted Living

Oct 19 2026

The assisted living facility

that took my mother in

was pleasant enough.

She was placed in her own small apartment

with a clever kitchen

that was foolproof, but never used,

and where she kept on living

a few more years.

Yes, of course a facility,

she couldn’t live on her own.

But does anyone not need assistance

to live their life,

hasn’t had it all along?

Even the libertarian

who exalts the sovereign self

depends on others,

the survivalist

who believes he’ll never need help

eventually will.

As if it’s even desirable 

to live like a feral animal

hunkered down in its lair

all alone.

I think of the help I received,

the community

I leaned on.

Of the stranger I saw

help a blind man cross the street,

elbow in hand

guiding him firmly to the curb.

And of the dog I lost,

and the good samaritan I’m grateful to

for finding her.

When she moved into the facility 

where she would live out her life

we packed light.

There were the usual essentials

we assembled in advance.

A landscape painting

to brighten the place.

And some practical clothes

for a lover of fashion

who always dressed immaculately,

whether attending a premiere 

or dashing to the corner store.

And, of course, some sentimental tchotchkes

she would have chosen if she could.

Not to mention the precious mementos 

of a life well-lived

for the woman who forgets.

A black and white photograph

of smiling newlyweds

  — the parents who raised her

looking impossibly young.

A modest urn

with my father’s ashes

  — her help-mate all the years

we were a family.

And pictures of the kids

in mortarboards and capes

she supported on the way;

faces she could no longer name

but found somehow familiar. 

The vibrant young woman

who became a stooped old lady

with thinning blue/grey hair.

The young mother, who stopped taking care,

and hardly ever complained

when an attendant changed her diaper

helped her undress;

the kind people

at Sunset Acres

who sometimes grew impatient

but assisted all the same.

Assisted living

from birth to death.

I overheard the phrase “assisted living facility” mentioned incidentally somewhere, and it instantly struck me that no one — of any age or ability — lives unassisted. 

We live in a complex interdependent society. Even the smug survivalists are fooling themselves. Our lives are only rich and easy because we depend on legions of others, on complicated systems and logistics we take for granted but never see and know nothing about. Not to mention family, friends, and the kindness of strangers.

Sunset Acres is a little much! But it was the first name that came to me, and it fit. So I kept it.

Sitting Still - Oct 18 2026

 

Sitting Still

Oct 18 2026

Sit still, I tell myself.

Just as 3rd graders, confined to their desks

are instructed;

the fidgeting boy 5 rows back,

the girl in the corduroy jumper

fussing with her braids.

The antsy child who wasn’t fed

and barely slept 

with all that shouting through the wall. 

Sitting is hard for kids,

fizzing with energy

like carbonated drinks

shaken cold,

Coca Cola over ice.

So why can’t I?

Belly up to the desk

put pen to paper?

A white page

against the darkly stained wood,

staring blankly back at me

like a bottomless hole

I need to fill by deadline.

But there are blue skies,

and through the open window

the sound of children at play.

I am a child again, in that 3rd grade class

staring out the big bank of windows

at a grassy playing field.

Is it true 

that when a shark stops moving it dies?

Perhaps we weren’t made to sit still.

Perhaps you have to get out

immersed

in the sturm und drang of a life.

Because sitting at a desk

with a bite-mark riddled pen

looking out an open window,

what is there to write about

but eye strain and sore teeth?

And who wants to read about a writer’s angst?

Which is when I fell into it.

That gaping hole

became a portal into other worlds,

like the mirror in Alice,

the magic door

in the dusty wardrobe

that led to Narnia.

So even though I’m sitting still 

my mind is travelling.

Whether to a tea party in Wonderland

where it’s always 6 pm,

or back in time

to a Grade 3 class

5 rows back.

Where an 8 year

with a pencil between his teeth

daydreams who knows what.

Perhaps imagining 

what he’ll become

50 years from now.

I no longer sit at desk with pen in hand. I recline in my easy chair, tapping on the keyboard of my iPad.

Neither do I don’t get writer’s block. If anything, its opposite.  Perhaps “writer’s logorrhoea”? 

Do I spend an inordinate amount of time sitting? Yes; and have no trouble sitting still while I’m writing and in that delightful flow state when time disappears. (I’ve written before about once being so immersed I only noticed later on that the space heater near my leg had given me a 2nd degree burn!)

So the poem is — as usual — not autobiographical. But the notion of mind travel is    . . . because it’s universal. One doesn’t need to move travel. The mind wanders. Sitting still may be unnatural, and it may be susceptible to distraction, but it can also be a ticket to anything and anywhere. 

As usual, I had no idea where this poem would go. It truly felt like taking dictation as one word after another came to me. So I’m delighted it found its way to this ending, the closed time loop between the writer’s older and younger self: one looking ahead, the other looking back. 

Btw, to answer the question the poem poses, only some species of shark have to keep swimming to keep water flowing over their gills (“ram ventilation”). Others can pump oxygenated water through their gills using mouth and throat muscles (“buccal pumping”). (That is, according to Gemini AI.)

Coke is still made with coca, but the cocaine is now chemically removed. So the original unadulterated Coke would have been an even better analogy for an antsy kid! Although a good editor would probably remove the Coca Cola line entirely — redundant. Fortunately, I’m my own editor (and probably a bad one!), so free to indulge.

My thanks to Joshua Rothman, whose piece in the New Yorker (Why is it So Hard to Sit Still?) inspired this: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/why-cant-you-sit-still

Greased Watermelon - Oct 16 2026

 

Greased Watermelon

Oct 16 2026

The word that comes to me

on the cusp of sleep

hours after I needed it.

It was there, on the tip of my tongue

before slipping away;

a letter or two

that linger like the aftertaste

that leaves you wanting more.

As frustrating

as the greased watermelon

at a pool party

squirting out of your hands.

As the maching at the penny arade

with a box full of prizes

and the dangling claw.

The word, slipping from my tongue

like that cheap watch

from its loosely grasping tentacles.

Memory, but not a good one

when it's there – you know it is --

but can't retrieve it.

There

on the tip of your tongue

There

in some hinterland of your brain

at the bottonm of a long winding sulcus

where it moulders away

in some grey-haired neuron

too vain to use a cane.

A long way to go,

like those Sunday drives down gravel roads

looking at fallow fields

and hearing the kids complain.

Is this how dementia starts,

the first shiver

in a death of cold?

Is my brain overcrowded,

like rush hour

when a lane is closed

and no one lets you merge?

Or is it corroding,

rust

flaking off the wiring

and mucking up the veins?

But doesn't getting the word, eventually

count for something?

Could this be just normal ageing?

When you brain takes its time,

but wisdom

helps you make the most of it.

When judgement is better

and lessons learned.

And when the urgency

of impetuous youth

has turned to composure;

after all, why hurry time

when there's so little left?

It’s true. On tests, younger people show faster processing speeds. But older people make up for this with more experience and better judgement. I lose more words from the tip of my tongue than I once did. But I know more words   . . . not the mention use them more cleverly!

When a word eludes me, I find that the harder I push, the more it recedes. Often, a little distraction — diverting (took a couple of seconds to retrieve that one just now!) my train of thought — is enough to unblock it. But sometimes I just have to put it aside and wait. It may take a day; but then, out of the blue, there it is: disinterred from some deep dark recess of my brain. My subconscious has been beavering away in the background all along.

October - Oct 15 2026

 

October

Oct 15 2026

I crunch through autumn leaves

sun-dried, and piled deep

as thunder rumbles far away;

a sound, like a lion's roar

heard as much as felt

deep in my core.

A coming storm.

When the distant horizon

bristles with roiling clouds.

When the sky darkens 

wind picks up

and you feel a power you can’t control;

the thrill

of a small hairless animal

naked under his clothes.

The world feels still,

as if holding its breath 

on the edge

teetering over the drop. 

The way a stone, tossed straight up, tops out,

pausing midair

as if exempt from gravity.

For too long, it sometimes seems;

because time isn’t fixed,

and because we see what we expect

or wish for.

In the calm before the storm

the light is unfiltered, 

so austere and steely-eyed

it etches each blade of grass

and anorexic tree

with unembellished clarity.

    . . .  A downpour has pummelled the ground

and it’s still coming down,

a light but steady rain. 

The thunder has quelled

lightning passed

storm expended its power.

All the fury, drained out of it,

like adrenaline from a body

exhausted by the fight.

I hear it drumming on the roof, trickling out the eaves.

The fallen leaves

have softened and swelled,

lying limply

in glistening mats

plastered to the earth.

No grass,

just a brown expanse

of rumpled sheets

left on the bed too long;

dirty laundry

waiting to be washed.

Background Noise - Oct 14 2026

 

Background Noise

Oct 14 2026

When the power went out

I sat in the dark,

as if waiting for someone to come

and tell me what to do.

My connection to the world

  — the digital umbilicus

that enters invisibly through the air —

had been cut;

the clear soup

of electromagnetic waves in which we swim

wherever we go

like it or not.

Which, if I didn’t take it for granted 

would seem like magic

in any other age.

The quiet was unsettling.

The noises the house makes

you only notice when they’re gone

made the sudden silence loud

  — the rumbling in its stomach

when the fridge switches on,

the wheeze of its breath

when the furnace blows.

Even the electric hum

of the bad fluorescent light

that keeps an eye on thing.

All the accustomed distractions

with which I passed the time

were out.

Alone

without the busywork I putter with,

the diversions

that keep boredom at bay. 

With nothing to drown out that voice in my head

or stop me from talking back,

and with none of the pictures and texts

that prevent my mind from wandering.

   . . . Because who knows where it might go?

Then, as I still sat

anchored to my chair

looking vacantly ahead

the power returned;

music played

video pulsed

content scrolled.

And the house came alive, lights lit up;

so whatever inner light

might have flickered to life

dimmed to a wintery dusk,

overpowered

by their 100 watt glow.

The inner light

like that fluorescent hum of background noise

I rarely notice anymore.

We live in age of constant distraction and stimulation. Like the cravings for junk food, our brains have become wired to crave the empty calories of easy input. 

But boredom is good. Sitting with yourself is good. Letting your mind wander can lead you to surprising places. This is where creativity happens. There is a very revealing study that says a lot about our need for distraction. Here’s Gemini's thumbnail description: “In a 2014 psychological study published in Science, researchers found that 67% of men and 25% of women chose to self-administer a mild electric shock rather than sit quietly alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes.”

So that’s what the poem is about: the inner light an easy metaphor for the inner life.

I spend most of my time alone. I’m connected, but loosely, and it’s quiet here. So I have lots of time to get bored, think, and get to know myself. Which is both good and bad: perhaps too much time for introspection, retrospection, and unpleasant rumination. Deep thinking is good; over-thinking and living in your head, not so much.

Admittedly, my life would change and be a lot less comfortable without the internet. But I’m not the man in the poem.  …Although maybe I am, after all. Because when the power goes out, my generator goes on. There’s a 20 second delay. And 20 seconds without electricity is hardly a test of sitting alone with yourself!

It’s just a minor tangent in the poem it wouldn’t have done to elaborate on, but you really have to wonder what the electronic soup we swim in all night and day everywhere we go is doing to us. It’s unnatural: throughout all of evolutionary history, human beings (and all life on earth) have never been exposed to such a thing. But hard to be concerned about something when you can’t see, hear, touch, or smell it!

Shrunken Heads - Oct 13 2026

 

Shrunken Heads

Oct 13 2026

She walked lightly on the earth.

Her footprint was small,

and the more she minimized

the smaller she became;

a disappearing act

of self-abnegation. 

I remember the shrunken heads I once saw

in the curio shop

among the oddities for sale

 — the two-headed calf

mermaid cadaver

macabre masks.

Were they minimalists as well?

Were they as guilty for living

as my earnest friend,

as repelled by excess?

At parties, no one noticed her.

She never raised her voice

so no one heard

her rare but trenchant whispers.

Her shadow shrunk so much

it seemed that light went right through her,

and sideways, she’d disappear

unless you knew where to look.

If frugality is virtuous

then she was sanctified.

Not a life I envy

but an ethic I admire.

I watched, over the years, as she diminished

then dematerialized.

How beautiful she was, almost angelic;

as delicate 

as fine bone china,

as translucent as an Irish mist.

She had the serious face of an idealist,

the ascetic grace

of a weightless arabesque;

but also the strength 

austerity requires. 

She was minimalist to the extreme,

the single thing 

she didn’t stint on.

I only wish she’d been easier on herself;

because she was too quiet to change minds,

too small to make a difference

in a world of appetite

unbridled ambition.

But beautiful for trying.

Too bad

love was a luxury

she refused to indulge.

Like all her acts of denial,

so noble an intention

and such a futile end.

I try to be a minimalist in my life. It’s an aesthetic preference, as well as an ideal. I can’t claim I succeed.

But as soon as I thought a poem about minimalism offered lots of possibility, I thought of someone I once knew: a committed environmentalist who lived what she believed. Such a noble act; but too small to matter. 

Unfortunately , that’s the sticking point of collective action:  when a problem can only be solved by everyone doing their little bit, but no one believes the effort is worthwhile, and no one wants to go first. In the case of climate change, the first-starter problem is as much one of nations as individuals. (Not that it should be, considering the benefits of getting off fossil fuels to population health, energy security, cost savings, and — in an electrifying world — industrial competitiveness. It’s no longer a sacrifice or unaffordable.)

While writing this, the classic movie and great science fiction film The Incredible Shrinking Man (the original as well as a remake, both based on a book of the same name) kept coming to mind. I saw her incrementally shrinking down until there was little left.

I couldn’t resist the title, even though it’s just a small (although, I hope, amusing) aside in the poem. Because I don’t mind a little misdirection in a title. (The tone of the poem isn’t quite what Shrunken Heads would lead you to expect.) And I like a title that draws a reader in. Which I imagine this one would!

Bloodlust and Carnivory - Oct 12 2026

 

Bloodlust and Carnivory

Oct 12 2026

Roughhousing with the dogs.

With bared teeth and lunges for the neck

they play at being wolves.

It’s the wagging tails that give them away,

the bright eyes

that seek out mine for approval.

But, as usual, I’m not fully there.

I am stuck on the word

which makes no sense, yet perfectly captures this.

Roughhousing,

a dad word 

my father might have used

but me, never

until just now.

The pairing of h, like musical chairs

taking a break in the middle.

That unwieldy ghh

I can’t begin to pronounce;

should I squeeze the hard g out my throat

or hiss an airy breath

  — the way a kid

gurgles out an ahhh

at the check-up with his tongue depressed?

But mostly, I like how house domesticates rough;

so it’s more innocent fun

than bloodlust and carnivory.

Sensibly, the dogs have no time for such reveries

know just single syllables.

They’re too preoccupied 

rolling on the carpet

grappling, and pretending to bite,

growling like they meant it.

The wolf, bred out of them

so only play is left.

My dogs have taught me many things. But the biggest and most enviable one may be how to be fully present:  neither ruminating on the past nor anxiously anticipating the future; not constantly planning, judging, or resisting what fate has delivered. They are Zen masters of living in the now. I’m not.

Also, they are formidable animals and could be killing machines, but instead they’re as endearingly innocent as plush toys. Might I suggest that we humans aren’t nearly so well bred?

The New Yorker published an Anne Carson poem today (the Oct 19, 2026 edition) that used this word. It’s a very useful but unlikely one:  unlikely, because I don’t see how it makes logical sense. In print, especially, the awkward conflation of its two constituent words really caught my eye. 

It also struck a cord because my 2 dogs and me “roughhouse” on the carpet almost every day! They seem less enthusiastic when I’m not there. It’s as if they’re either showing off, trying to entertain me as best they know how, or seeking my approval. I say this because they occasionally catch my eye, as if checking in on me: am I  still there, still engaged? This reminds me of little kids insistingly shouting “watch me” to onlooking parents as they perform a cartwheel or some other proudly mastered feat.

Her poem is called Life. Here’s how it begins:

Bright as boatwash

we head for Montreal,

to Will’s house.

Will’s birthday.

Here’s Will!

New green sofa,

glass of Malbec,

roughhousing with the dog on the rug.

  . . .