Should I Answer the Call? - May 10 2026

 

Should I Answer the Call?

May 10 2026

Most predictions are wrong.

Except that the future always come true

and by then it seems inevitable.

Is it foolish to try?

Does the here-and-now not suffice?

Is life a lottery

for folks who like to take a chance

but also find gambling

too dicey by far?

There are many forms of augury.

Tea leaves

observing the stars

an outstretched palm.

Not to mention the darker arts

like conjuring the dead

and the reading of entrails.

Then there’s premonition, intuition, straws in the wind,

tables of statistics

the prophecies in scripture

crystal balls.

I prefer to keep it small.

No great men,

no seismic shifts

in social conditions 

or human consciousness.

Just what’s for breakfast 

which socks to wear

should I answer the call.

Or even get out of bed?

With the possibility there

that I can hold it off

at least a few hours;

that the here-and-now

which was once in my future

still is,

a simple prediction

that fulfills itself. 

Thought it would be fun to riff on the idea of prediction. I wanted to make it less linear and more whimsical than my usual stuff. I think I succeeded. 

I immediately recalled the quote attributed to Yogi Berra (even though he never said it!): “It’s tough to make predictions. Especially about the future.” So I was careful about committing the same redundancy in my opening line, especially when my first impulse was to write “predictions about the future”!

We talk about “the” future as if it’s not only singular but almost inevitable. But, of course, there are infinite possibilities:  many futures (plural), but — of course — only one of which will come true. (Or, if there really are multiple universes and quantum probability, that should be amended to say only one of which will come true “for us”.) 

I chose the title because it’s suggestive of those fateful forks in the road that determine a vastly different future:  a phone call, for example, you may have chosen not to answer. 

No great men refers to the “Great Man Theory”:  that history is primarily shaped by exceptional individuals born with innate leadership qualities. The competing theory has it that great individuals emerge from societal conditions, not vice versa. To me, the first seems more random and unpredictable; while the second suggests that one could more reliably map out the future as a more coherent chain of cause and effect. So if Hitler hadn’t appeared, would someone similar have simply filled his role, dictated not by personality but rather the inexorable tides of history? I tend to favour the great man (and now woman) theory. The second seems too deterministic, too settled. Because prediction, as I wrote, is almost always wrong, confounded by contingency and event. Not to mention nature. (What dinosaur on the prehistoric version of 24 hour cable news (where opinion too often masquerades as news) would have predicted a devastating meteor impact? Did anyone in Pompeii anticipate the volcano suddenly erupting?)

Some Reflections on Posterity - May 8 2026

 

Some Reflections on Posterity

May 8 2026

I imagine great grandfathers

I’ve never met.

Who passed on a name.

Perhaps some minor legacy

in wealth or reputation,

an echo of identity 

in old country food

an ethnic dance

a colourful turn of phrase.

I know there were greats, of course,

but no memory

has been handed down

of the men who actually were.

The fact they existed, yes;

but no warp and weft of a life,

not even a given name.

Certainly not a picture

in sepia tones

of a proud man in formal clothes

with an ornately opulent beard,

standing unnaturally still

for a long exposure photograph. 

So did he think, once he’d attained an age

when a man seeks meaning in life

and contends with existential angst,

that a long line of descendants

spreading down through time

was where he would find it?

That he was not a loose thread

but a stitch in a tapestry?

Not a blip of a life

but a link in a family?

That he might find a kind of immortality 

in memory

continuity

and respect for the past?

The meaning

a young man thinks he can find

with the possessions

he works hard to acquire,

the status

and social ladders he climbs,

and the acts of creation

he might leave behind.

Which, like most human endeavour

soon enough

turn to dust;

as ephemeral

as we ourselves.

But then, my people are matrilineal,

so it’s great grandmothers

and all the greats that came before

I should be thinking of.

Women, who didn’t leave even a name

to pass down to their progeny.

Whose children

  — whom they birthed, and nurtured, and loved

and sacrificed for —

left for faraway continents

or foreign wars.

And whose descendants 

not only speak an alien tongue

but don’t know where they came from

or really much care. 

The irony

in our notion of posterity

is to presume that future generations

will, if not venerate

at least remember us,

while we, in turn, forge on through life

with our eyes fixed firmly in front.

Just as I suspect

that in a moment of reflection

  — when life was hard

and introspection a luxury — 

she, too, considered her legacy.

That, in a sense, she thought about me

 — at least hypothetically —

while I

uninterested

and ignorant of history 

am oblivious to her.

Considered her legacy,

never imagining

that my ingratitude

would betray her life’s work.

That I would never look back

let alone glance

at the long familial line

of begottens and begets.

That my thread would unravel

and the tapestry fade;

abandoned

in some ancestral home

that was never handed-down,

we lost track of

long ago.

Creature of Habit - May 8 2026

 

Creature of Habit

May 8 2026

I am creature of habit;

my well-regimented life

does not waver

get distracted 

or welcome surprise.

There is an order to things

that emerged, like life on earth

in the primeval slime

of my formative years;

lost

in the mists of time

I’m too far gone to remember. 

Or perhaps, some undersea vent

spewing hot infernal gas

that stinks of rotten eggs;

too deep 

to go back and interrogate. 

Others might call me curmudgeonly,

unadventurous,

perhaps a touch eccentric.

Even arrested

mid trajectory

in the arc of the life well-lived;

too comfortable

to risk deviation,

too timorous

to pursue personal growth.

Trouble is, you can’t stop in the middle of an arc

without falling straight down. 

Like a work horse

eyes blinkered and head lowered

ploughing the same old furrows,

I plod along

lost in equine thought

row after row.

Who will some day soon

find himself retired 

to his familiar stall

and the barn door closed.

Then shipped off

to the slaughterhouse

to be chopped-up into pet food

rendered into glue.

If any of my poems are autobiographical, it’s very indirect — little hints dropped here and there. I guess I prefer distance and deflection over revelation and confession. But I have to admit that this one hits closer to home. Because I am very much a creature of habit. And the older I get, the less I resist such complacency. An unusual degree of change aversion is characteristic of autism. Since I check off a lot of other boxes, being on the spectrum (supposedly “high-functioning”, although the result after so many years of life makes me wonder just how high!) is my shorthand way of explaining myself.

Or maybe it’s not preference. Maybe it’s fear, because I feel I have something to hide. Or embarrassment, because I feel my inner life is too unworthy to ask people to bother with. Or just propriety, because I think confessional poetry is too self-indulgent.

Anyway, an attentive reader already knows I’m a creature of habit. Who else would feel compelled to write a poem almost every single day?!!

(Btw, glue is actually rarely made from horses anymore. If not synthetic — which it mostly is — it’s made from the collagen of cattle and pigs.)

A Good Listener - May 5 2026

 

A Good Listener

May 5 2026



In my practice of silence 

I still talk to myself.

Not out loud, of course

so I presume my vow still holds.

The voice in my head is unstoppable;

my inner monologue

never tires of itself

even though I do.

Monks once took a vow

perhaps still do.

What purpose this serves

in a life of devotion

I’m trying to understand.

Does it suppress the ego, human pride,

as if all of your weighty thoughts

aren’t worth the wasted breath?

Does silence leave space

for the word of God,

that famously aloof

and taciturn redeemer?

Or is it an exercise in denial?

Because virtue is served by restraint,

austerity clarifies; 

just as poverty

celibacy

and unquestioning faith

are antidotes to avarice, envy

and sins of the flesh.

If only my wordlessness

had a purpose greater than circumstance,

because I’d have more to say

if there was someone to listen.

Sure, I see the dog’s ears perk up

and her head cocking quizzically

at the sound of my voice,

but that’s all she hears --

a woodland creature

sending out its throaty calls

and crude animal noises. 

So I vow to speak

when I’ve something worthwhile to say.

When a good listener stops by

and decides to stay.

When the unbearable pressure 

of all the words in my head

cracks the cone of silence

I somehow made for myself,

the monastic solitude

I never really wanted

so much as needed, back then;

when life was hard

and peace felt unattainable.

HowTime Passes - May 4 2026

 

How Time Passes

May 4 2026

Odd, how time passes.

Walking the dogs

when I’m lost in reverie,

retreating into my head

as I let them run free.

Driving my usual route

like a milk-horse on its rounds,

when I come to my senses

only to find

I’m already there.

Or lost in words 

in a darkening room

looking down at a screen,

shoulders hunched and neck tightening;

my face a ghostly white

in its catatonic glow.

Only to look up, surprised to see

that the clock on the wall

has leap-frogged ahead,

while I’m left me wondering where

the lost hours went.

How recollection fails,

and I’m out of time

out of place.

I think that falling, time would stretch,

my racing mind concentrate

as it flashes back

imagines ahead;

an entire lifetime lived  . . .

before the sudden stop at the end.

Time is not a ticking clock

or leaky tap

dripping metronomically.

It arrives unexpectedly,

expands and contracts,

and can surreptitiously vanish

in a black hole

of baffled absent-mindedness.

Or hover ominously. 

The roller coaster

has ratcheted jerkily up

to the peak of its rickety curve.

I am poised at the top,

stuck

in a moment of stillness

overlooking the world.

It’s quiet here, high above the fair,

the gears no longer clanking

and the riders all holding their breath.

Then sometimes, it seems

we live impossibly fast.

We are photons

who might, if the path were clear

zap across the universe

at the speed of light.

If “zap” is a suitable word

for 93 billion years.

Photons, travelling for 20 times longer

than the age of the earth,

yet also expiring

at our moment of birth.

A little physics here. I mean the observable universe. The size of the actual universe is unknowable. 

And photons do not “experience” time. Because at the speed of light, according to relativity, time shrinks to nothing. So a photon could cross all 93 billion lightyears of the known universe in an infinitesimal instant. Only to give up its energy when it eventually collides with a planet, an asteroid, or perhaps your retina:  dying at its moment of birth. 93 billion years to us, according to how  we perceive and measure the speed of light; but zero time to the photons it’s made of.

This common experience of blanking out when driving a familiar route — when it feels you must have been on some sort of autopilot — offers a small window of insight into the unconscious brain. We may think conscious experience — awareness, sentient feeling, executive decision making — is the sum of us, and what the brain essentially does. But clearly not here. So what else might be going on below the surface? What do we see, but not perceive — received by the eye, but culled by the unconscious brain? What cognitive biases are percolating up and influencing us unaware? Is the brain on drugs closer to rather than further from its truth?

Lost in words describes the “flow state” I find myself in when reading and — especially — when writing. Athletes also experience this, but more frequently call it “being in the zone”.  Time disappears. Things feel effortless. I once had a space heater on under the table to warm my feet as I wrote.  Only later did I realize that my lower leg had gotten a 2nd degree burn! (Who knows how my pants didn’t catch on fire!)

I’m imagining a traditional wooden roller coaster, peeling paint and all. Not one of those modern gravity-defying tubular steel thrill-rides. The old ones were slower and lower, but somehow felt more perilous.

Sins of Omission - May 2 2026

 

Sins of Omission

May 2 2026

The leaves over-wintered

beneath the snow,

like a thin insulating layer

blanketing

the sleeping soil.

Now freeze dried, and slowly decomposing

in the brisk spring air,

they form a rust-coloured mat

still damp

from the recent thaw.

Will they suffocate the grass

starve it of sun?

I gaze out despairingly

and contemplate my many sins

of sloth, neglect, and drift.

The shoddy work, 

chores deferred,

and people badly served

or thoughtlessly ignored.

Mostly sins of omission

but also selfishness. 

The leaves, of course, can be raked

and the the lawn will green-up

as it’s always done,

producing its annual crop of weeds

and patchy bare spots

my half-hearted efforts 

have failed to regenerate.

I shrink into myself,

imagining the lawn as a billboard

proclaiming my negligence

to each tut-tutting passerby. 

Some mistakes can be repaired

their consequences softened

or even mercifully forgotten

in the fullness of time.

But I fear the important things in life

are beyond recovery;

they resonate down the years

the way a stone in water

breaks its glassy calm,

concentric waves

losing height

but fanning out in all directions.

Give them time to dry, I say to myself,

too soon

to get out the rake.

Netherworld [revised May 3] - May 1 2026

 

Netherworld

May 1 2026

I used to think I didn’t dream.

Why a man in his prime

would sleep seamlessly

should have made no sense.

Perhaps exhaustion explains it,

stumbling into bed

and falling into a deep narcotic sleep,

no inner life left,

no energy

for self-indulgent contemplation.

So why, now that I’m old

do I remember my dreams,

sometimes so vividly

I bolt up in a fever sweat?

Why, when we have settled lives

and have either realized our dreams

or resigned ourselves to disappointment

does the sleeping mind

so busy itself?

Is it shallow sleep, or a restless brain,

bored

by the bland everyday?

Why does my mind race

between bathroom breaks,

awakening groggily

in the ghostly light of the clock,

rising, often reluctantly, through that liminal state

where blurry consciousness

and that gonzo world

intersect;

where anything is possible

and nothing quite real.

Where we’re all making art,

flicking brushes and throwing paint

at the spattered canvas in our heads.

If only the holy grail

of restorative sleep

would somehow come to me. 

But my brain has its own agenda,

and anyway, my life asleep

often seems more interesting

than the mindless day-to-day.

And after all

I have a life

already mostly lived

on which to ruminate

in night’s unnerving netherworld.

In our 2nd childhoods, do we regress,

become babies again

even if more cynical and jaded?

Who don’t sleep like the cliché,

but toss and turn

as their minds race,

trying to make sense of a bewildering world,

resolve the flood of sensation

before it swamps an immature brain,

twitchy

with freshly minted newness.

As of yet, I return to the world with little to share,

no insights of consequence

no great revelation.

Just interrupted sleep

that leaves me jet-lagged and questioning.

Trying to knit together

the fragments of dreams;

find my way back

along an unmarked trail

of flashbacks and random thoughts

I struggle to make sense of.

I have started to better remember my dreams the older I get. But I suspect it’s more a result of practice than some change in my brain or stage of life. Although I can only speak for myself. Perhaps others have experienced something similar. (Or, better said, remember more.) Maybe older brains, in general, do dream more.

And perhaps there’s no point in trying to make sense of dreams: that they’re not intended to be meaningful; that they’re just epiphenomena as the brain does its necessary work of consolidating memory and learning, self-repair, and once a day flushing itself of impurities — the waste products of metabolism.

The psychologist Susan Pinker has described babies as the R & D department of life: they aren’t passive lumps we shove food into; they don’t “sleep like babies”. Rather, their brains — with everything to learn, including the fantastic complexity of language —  are constantly churning:  more active than at any other time. So this is one stage of life that, no matter who you are, does require an intense dream life.

All at Once - April 30 2026

 

All at Once

April 30 2026

Dusk comes slowly

then all at once.

Light lingers

after the sun has set,

spreading through the atmosphere

and around the curve of earth.

As if it could be captured by air

and kept indefinitely

so darkness never comes;

a perennial dusk

of phantasmagoric light.

Incorruptible photons

that have travelled millions of miles 

reflecting off molecules

like light from silvered glass.

As if you stood between two mirrors

and saw your image recede

until infinity swallowed you up.

How small can you get

how long can you last

until vanishing

into its two dimensional labyrinth?

But night does come,

lit by the stars

and softened by the city lights.

So it never gets truly dark

out in the real world.

Except here

in this windowless space 

between four walls.

Where even a glimpse of sky 

is impossible

and there is no dawn or dusk,

no sense

of the passage of time

or when the dark will end.

Where night comes all at once

then stays;

bearing down on you

like a heavy weight

you haven’t the strength to budge.

This poem took itself in an unexpected direction. As if it had a mind of its own. 

Which isn’t surprising, since my process is generally to begin with an image or thought, have no particular expectation or preconceived ending, and then just riff. It can feel like taking dictation: the sound suggests a word, an idea offers itself, I let a tangent deflect me, or a phrase appears. Here, I began with looking up and watching dusk descend through the picture window, after which Hemingway’s famous quote from The Sun Also Rises came to me:  “How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” It doesn’t darken at a steady rate. You don’t notice dusk settling in, until you do.

At some point, a theme hardens and the path ahead narrows. Here, I was playing around with darkness and light, with the night sky and the elusiveness of total darkness. So I figured human light pollution (another environmentally themed poem!) would be the direction it took. I can’t explain in any autobiographical way how the poem instead became a metaphor for depression, or at least for despair.

I suspect this came less from personal experience and more from process: the image of vanishing into a mirror, which led to the less literal thought of feeling so small you disappear. Which is as good a metaphor for depression as any.  But that wasn’t intentional; it came from simply wanting an example of molecules reflecting light. After all, isn’t the cardinal rule of poetry to show, not tell?

Not that there aren’t many reasons to despair in this time of dizzying geopolitical change, inequality, runaway climate change, and execrable leadership. (Not to mention the equally execrable followership that permits it to happen.)

Found Beauty - April 28 2026

 

Found Beauty

April 28 2026

The old chain link fence

offends my sense of order.

Adds to the air of neglect

of the bungalow

it presumes to protect.

Which is decrepit enough

with its peeling paint,

uncut grass, overrun with weeds,

and knock-off children’s toys

scattered messily

on the M.C Esher-ish deck.

I prefer plumb-line posts

standing as straight

as soldiers at attention,

galvanized metal

gleaming like a child’s teeth

proudly leaving the dentist’s.

Not the rusting chain link

and dented uprights

that lean like drunken sailors,

the saggy gate

that squeaks stiffly shut

if it closes at all.

Yet despite my first impression

there’s something about this fence

that draws my eye.

Perhaps how it has settled into the land;

conforming to its ups and downs,

gently subsiding

on the poorly drained soil,

and wearing its age

without apology.

Or how it makes the passage of time

seem material,

crystallized

in oxidized metal and dented posts.

Or how, in a neighbourhood

crowded out by gentrification 

this house stands firm,

despite its a cracked foundation

and fun-house tilt;

stubbornly shabby,

poor, but defiant,

refusing to conform.

The fence won’t keep anyone out

  — it’s not so much practical 

as an act of conceptual art.

In which I can't help but see

the found beauty

of imperfection and decay.

Of ageing gracefully

and stoic acceptance. 

And of bending, not breaking,

despite years of bad weather

and the settling of the land.

I walk past it each day,

and instead of looking unsightly 

and out of place,

it’s beginning to look more and more

as if it’s just where it belongs. 

Breaking Glass - April 27 2026

 

Breaking Glass

April 27 2026

A person from my distant past

has unexpectedly re-entered

my well-settled life.

Is this how it feels

to find a message in a bottle 

washed up onshore?

It floats on ocean currents

circling the globe

for untold years,

accreting barnacles

dodging gyres

and slipping past rocky outcrops 

until your paths somehow cross,

ineluctably drawn

to this exact spot

as if by fate or kismet.

As if life was circular.

As if beginnings always reached

a satisfying end

instead of dying of neglect,

or were‘t ill-conceived to begin with.

And as if coincidence

wasn’t just an accident,

no matter how much we skeptics

scorn the credulous 

who believe there’s some kind of plan.

Trouble is

water may have leaked

and turned the paper to pulp,

or the top has welded shut

and the bottle must be broken

  — sealed in a bag,

then shattered

with a hammer

at its fattest part.

Only to find the ink has faded,

and is as inscrutable

as the person you misjudged

when you were young

and far too trusting. 

Not all reunions end well.

Sometimes, it’s better to leave the past

buried in the sand,

no matter how tempted you are

to dig it up. 

The oceans are vast

its currents unpredictable.

  . . . Most bottles go missing.

If only the one you found

was what you went looking for.

And how, disillusioned or not

against all odds

you can’t stop yourself

from looking for more.

I was reading a New Yorker piece about a dedicated beachcomber who is obsessed with finding messages in bottles. There is a worldwide community of such people. Understandable, since even non-enthusiasts can appreciate the romance and mystery, as well as the thrill of the chase. There are so many tempting possibilities to this idea of a message in a bottle, I immediately wanted to write a poem.

(What Happens When Someone Throws a Message in a Bottle Into the Sea?https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/05/04/signed-sealed-delivered)

Shortly after, I glanced at my inbox and was reminded of an email from a childhood friend with whom I’ve recently gotten back in touch. Not so easy for me, since I’m not only not on social media, but generally rather hermetic in my “well-settled life”:  in other words, not one to go looking.

In reality, there are no regrets or bad memories associated with this childhood friend. While the poem takes a diametrically different path. Because I think this is something a reader might relate to: dredging up a long ago acquaintance, friend, or lover from the distant past, only to end up wishing you’d left him or her buried. Going back in time, hoping things might change   . . . or simply forgetting   . . . or wanting to make amends.