Infernal Dark has been temporarily taken down. The final version will be re-posted shortly.
Thursday, October 8, 2026
Infernal Dark - Oct 7 2026
Tuesday, October 6, 2026
Shallow Graves - Oct 6 2026
Shallow Graves
Oct 6 2026
A zombie link
takes you nowhere.
Once, it led to a website;
now, it simply tempts you,
the living dead
stumbling directionless
into the ether of the internet.
They say beware what you post
it’s all forever there.
But links degrade
memory fades
and people change.
So be thankful for forgetfulness
not to mention rotting brains.
I imagine a scary movie, perhaps a parody
— an army of stale links
marching stiffly, arms outstretched
glassy eyes
staring dully ahead.
An error message appears
as I click, and click again.
The internet swarms with them,
old entries
that exist somewhere
on bulletin boards, in black-and-white text,
embarrassing rants
in shallow graves
festering on the dark web.
Neither living nor dead
they haunt us still;
that there’s a chance
they might come back to life.
The first time I saw that expression — zombie link — I thought it so clever, and immediately wanted to have some fun with it. That was a while ago. No idea why it resurfaced today. And not that I have any dark secrets lurking on the web.
I take that “forever” warning with a grain of salt. Because it contains some hubris: after all, nothing is forever. Even the internet. It’s digital, yes. But also depends on actual hardware — servers, cables, power sources, and hands-on management — none of which will last forever. Just like the ruins of ancient civilizations, whose builders must also have thought were the zenith of human achievement and would stand the test of time. . . . Also, you just not that interesting: no one really cares, and certainly won’t in the future!
And Leave Us to Ourselves - Oct 6 2026
And Leave Us to Ourselves
Oct 6 2026
Spring back, fall ahead.
An hour of extra light
or less
depending on when
the powers that be determine.
Of course, it’s all léger de main
— a trick of the hour hand,
like a coin behind the ear,
a vanished card
that reappears.
I like the dark.
I am wintry, sepulchral, tenebrous,
hunker, lurk
seek refuge.
I migrate to the sunless hour, cower in the light,
inhabit long dark nights
and estivate in summer.
The change is late this year.
Twilight softens the world
as the dregs of dusk persist,
darkness doesn’t fall
when I feel it should.
Some day, the clock will be fixed.
The spare hour will not shift,
and the arbitrary rule
no longer be contested
by nighthawks and morning people.
As if there was such a thing as extra light.
As if the sun could be fooled
the earth paused
by a simple act of law.
It took about an hour
to write this rough draft.
Late, but long enough
to safely open the blinds;
for the light to fade
the day recede
my eyes mercifully rest.
Daylight savings time
is like an unwanted guest
who outstays her welcome while I force a smile,
sipping her tea
while telling the same old stories
or asking me to pick a card.
Please go, I think, while the light is good
and leave me and the night to ourselves.
Actually, although I’m as night-hawkish as they come, I’m enjoying the extra hour of evening light this fall. But it feels like it’s too late in the season for the clocks not to have changed. So I checked, and Nov 1 seems to me to be the latest ever for DST to end. No?
This time of year, there’s a distinct quality to the evening light: it seems thin, washed-out, more transparent. And when there’s this kind of cold (our winters come early!), it seems incongruous for it to persist so late in the day.
So clock conventions, light and dark, and day/night have been on my mind. This is certainly not the first time I’ve written about my preference for darkness, night, and cold weather: the intimacy and privacy of darkness; the energization of cold; and the bracing adversity of winter.
I usually quite consciously avoid using “big” words. I think they interrupt the reader’s flow, make her pause in order to process meaning. (Or worse, stop and look them up!) I want a poem to enter into consciousness the way music does — directly and unmediated: visceral, not intellectual; felt, not analyzed. Words shouldn’t act as speed bumps. So I apologize for tenebrous, estivate, and sepulchral. A small indulgence. I like the sound and precision of these words here. And perhaps my reluctance underestimates my reader. Words also have a certain “mouth feel”. Ideally, poetry is recited. It’s written to be heard at the pace of human speech. But even when you read it in your head, your mouth silently forms the words. Often, I’ll choose one word over another equally good one just for this reason. “Mouth feel” is part of the aesthetic pleasure of language.
I personified DST as a “her”. No reason. Perhaps the later light seems to have a more feminine energy. Or perhaps I prefer female company! I’m also old school. My pronouns are binary. I find the singular “they” confusing. It would be better if we could invent a brand new word.
A Cure for Cancer - Oct 5 2026
A Cure for Cancer
Oct 5 2026
Yes, cancer was finally cured,
artificial hearts
have replaced the failed ones,
and it’s been found
that an elixir
infused into old brains
rejuvenates even the balkiest.
So we all now live forever.
What then?
Eternal life
but no room on earth for newborns?
No new blood
to replace the incumbents
who are increasingly bored
and fixed in their ways?
They don’t dodder anymore,
but there are only so many times
you can replace a hip.
And how soon until the daily jog palls,
how long
the wait for eternity?
I’m not saying a ripe old age is punishment,
but isn’t a life sentence
without chance of parole
deemed cruel and unusual
even by criminal law?
Just imagine, no parenthood, no family.
No arc to life,
and with time immaterial
no urgency,
no need
not to put things off forever.
Which may be why it’s been said
that death gives life meaning.
Or at least, impels us to seek it out.
Forever is like a poem
written without constraints;
no rhyme or pacing,
line breaks wherever,
and distillation be damned.
Would it even be a poem?
Or would it be a single run-on sentence
that never ended
and no one wanted to read?
Great art, it would seem, depends on limits.
I think of all the crumpled pages
scrawled with false starts
scattered on the floor,
the masterpieces
painted over failed tries.
I think of evolution
without life and death.
There would be no peacocking birds, lichens and trees
and no human beings;
life on earth
would be just single-celled creatures
in an airless sea.
Not to say we’re its greatest work of art,
but we’re at least a rough outline
a good first draft.
And I think of the fly
added to the portrait of the wealthy man,
a momento mori
in an unobtrusive corner
hanging on the wall.
A harbinger
to keep him humble,
a reminder
that death comes for us all.
And perhaps a reminder
that eternity is no cure.
That death doesn’t need one.
And that wishing for an end
that never comes
could be its own version of hell.
Today, in another article about AI, one of its many cheerleader once again dangles the tempting old cliche of finding a cure for cancer. (Which, btw, conveniently ignores the biological fact that cancer is not a single disease. “A cure” for cancer is a misnomer; it should be “the cures”. There will be no magic bullet. Just as there is no single antibiotic that kills every kind of bacteria.)
It strikes me that the tech bros who are championing AI are the same people (actually, the same men) who are keen on life extension; the types who would jump at eternal life, if they could. And who think that they — above and beyond the rest of all of us non-billionaires — are uniquely entitled to live forever. Such self-regarding vanity. Such solipsistic ego.
So what if every disease — not just cancer — was cured? Whether by AI super-brains, or simple human ones. What would be the sociological and anthropological ramifications of eternal life? (Not to mention the psychological ones.) Because you can’t just think about the sovereign individual; you have to consider society as a whole.
(Nevertheless, after that pious high-mindedness, I have to admit that the closer to death I become, the more attractive life extension gets to this particular sovereign individual. I understand the complexity and potential drawbacks; but given a choice, I’d take my chances!))
Yes, great art does depends on limits, and constraints are key to creativity. So I apologize for the length of this poem. Not quite a run-on sentence that never end(s), but — as usual — longer than I’d ideally like it to be. I guess I always have just too much to get off my mind!
Mola Mola - Oct 4 2026
Mola Mola
Oct 4 2026
This fish looks preposterous;
ugly
. . . in a homely sort of way.
Look it up
— the Mola Mola,
a giant sunfish
with a pneumatic body like a bloated disk,
one bottom fin
and one on top,
and a missing tail
that looks cut off
by a rusty pair of scissors.
You can spy them at the surface, basking in the sun,
enticing seabirds
to peck at their parasites,
letting little cleaner fish
nibble on their skin.
Evolution
and vast amounts of time
fashion most unlikely creatures.
So who’s to say
how a fish should look?
Who’s to judge
what works . . . and what does not?
After all, we’re all odd fish
swimming
in a sea of humanity.
But in place of fins, matching limbs
and hidden tails
instead of none
just above the rump.
While puffed-up heads
keep us afloat
with inflated self-importance.
Life is bizarre.
How cleverly
living things
find ways to solve survival
— the differences
will take your breath away.
So we’re all Mola Molas, of a sort,
even you and me.
And who’s to say
we don’t belong,
who’s to say we’re wrong?
For some reason, this video (click on the link ) turned up on my YouTube feed last night. A fish that looked so preposterous, I had to check it out: because this must surely be either some kind of joke, bizarre injury, or a singular freak of nature.
Evolution never ceases to surprise me! Biodiversity, the key to life’s survival.
Have to say, I identified with a fellow creature who would also be seen as different. But then, aren’t we all? An important understanding, in a political environment that’s increasingly suspicious of difference and seeks to demonize otherness.
The Law of Truly Large Numbers - Oct 3 2026
The Law of Truly Large Numbers
Oct 3 2026
If The Law of Truly Large Numbers is true
then anything is possible
if you count high enough.
But mom, all my friends are doing it
a teenager whines,
and why not cheat on my taxes
doesn’t everyone?
Enough scofflaws, it seems
and nothing’s impossible.
Of course, most of us aren’t statisticians.
When unlikely things happen
we’re alone in the world,
feel a spotlight
following us
like an unblinking eye.
The hard geometry of reality softens
our firm foundation sags,
and we begin to imagine
some hidden power.
Sure, if you’re good with numbers
you can calculate the odds
a thing might happen
— but happen to me?!
This is no mere coincidence, I’ll flatly insist.
And wasn’t it Freud who said
there are no accidents?
Ideally, laws should be precise.
But “truly” large??
This isn’t a law, it’s guesswork.
Like doing your taxes,
when massaging the numbers
or shifting a decimal
one spot to the left
can tempt the best of us.
Still, precise or not, it’s reassuring.
Because if the Law of Truly Large Numbers
really is true
it opens up the universe,
all its unseen galaxies
quadrillions of suns
and undiscovered earths;
an infinity
of possibility
and no false hope.
Actually, quadrillion underestimates the number of stars in the universe by app. 9 orders of magnitude! I originally had written trillions, liked the sound of quadrillions better (whatever quadrillion is!), then thought it might be high . . .and checked. A truly large number indeed!
Of course, Freud is mostly full of shit. Sometimes a cigar really is just a cigar! Kudos to him, though, for pioneering the idea of the subconscious. Before him, no one really viewed human behaviour through a psychological lens, as we routinely do now.
Going Home Again - Oct 2 2026
Going Home Again
Oct 2 2026
It’s always smaller than you remember
if it’s even still there.
The postage stamp backyard
your closet-sized room.
You can go home again
but not really.
And while the big maple is even bigger
you parents shrunk;
the father
who was all-powerful
is now a small old man,
the mother bear
who so fiercely protected her young
has turned into a teddy
with some stuffing leaking out.
But while things diminish
moments loom large.
The crumpled fender,
best friend,
bad job.
The fishing trips
with just the two of you.
First grade, first kiss, first drunk,
first sex
that wasn’t embarrassing.
The pets
whose deaths can still bring tears,
when the cruel truth
there’s no forever
landed like a betrayal.
Memory works that way.
It’s less a camera, recording in real time
than a poem
you write from the heart.
Then rewrite countless times
because it sounds wrong
goes on too long
or doesn’t matter anymore.
Because you want to make it rhyme
or find a better word.
Or because of something you said,
cutting a difficult line
you felt you had to write
but know could never share.
As more was learned about how memory works, the more it was understood that it isn’t fixed. That every time a memory is called upon — depending on things like mood, state of mind, circumstance, expectation, and new information — it gets written. And, of course, even a virgin memory — the original version, uncontaminated by recall — is not what happened, it’s what we perceived. Because there’s a big difference between objective reality and what our senses take in, and then what our brain determines should be given salience. Just ask 2 people who witnessed the same event to recall what they saw. Neither version is likely the whole truth! Defence lawyers know this: eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable and easily influenced, perhaps by overhearing someone else’s recounting, or something as simple as a leading question.
Things are forgettable. But experiences and relationships leave a strong impression. Which is what they say about life. That it won’t be the fancy car or big house you remember on your deathbed, it will be the relationships: the people and events that won’t fade, and where consolation and meaning might be found.
I certainly don’t share much. I don’t write confessional poetry. I make stuff up and take poetic license.
It’s not that I don’t want my reader to see herself in it when she can. But it’s a shared sensibility or an image that strikes a chord, not a spotlight on my life, with all its minor traumas and personal flaws.
In the penultimate stanza, I couldn’t resist goes on too long, even if it doesn’t strictly apply to memory. Because it applies so nicely to the poetry metaphor. Or at least my poems, which usually do. Even though I know better, but still refuse to rewrite. (Unable to cut even a single precious word!)
White Pine - Oct 1 2026
White Pine
Oct 1 2026
The massive trunk
of the towering pine
curves gently to the south.
Away
from the prevailing wind
that blows from west of north.
I imagine how the sapling must have bent
but didn’t break.
As if its supple spine
had a memory.
As if its thick cell walls
had grown under stress
and carried a permanent mark
— like an impressionable child
who learns by example
despite what you tell him.
These virgin white pine, strong and straight
were prized as masts
in His Majesty’s Royal Navy.
So this one must have been spared;
a misfit tree
a freak of nature.
Shunned, like circus people.
The way decent folks gawk
at the bearded lady, fire-eater
lithe contortionist,
who are happy to keep to themselves
in their wheeled caravans
of ornately carved wood.
A tree that learned well,
standing
like a column of granite
against the fiercest gale.
A beautiful tree,
looming protectively
and strengthened by adversity.
I wonder how many ships went down
since this one’s been here?
And a tree I can only admire
if not be proud of;
as if it wasn’t presumptuous
that simply owning property
entitled me to pride.
No one gawks
or points in ridicule.
We only look up,
and with a hand shading our eyes
take delight;
a survivor
that, like the best of us
bends but doesn’t break.
Squander - Sept 30 2026
Squander
Sept 30 2026
Rain, after a dry spell
soaks into the ground
the way a parched man guzzles
whatever foul liquid
you offer him.
It may have poured
come down in torrents
rained cats and dogs,
but there’s no puddling, no mud,
not even a dark blush
to the desiccated soil.
The earth seems bottomless,
its thirst unquenchable.
It percolates down,
finding its way through cracks and seams
and into streams,
then collecting underground
in great aquifers
where for millennia
it may sit in the dark;
cold still water
with an iron tinge
and the hard taste of rock.
This is like the rich man’s horde
his cache of wealth.
Precious water he can tap
like liquid gold
beneath the desert sand.
Or, like a spendthrift, squander,
pumping it out
until the ground subsides
and his palace crumbles,
the lush green crops
turn into husks
baked brown by the sun.
~~~~
. . . Or a dry spell
when no rain comes.
Cloudless skies,
and parched men
down on their knees
gazing listlessly up.
Praying to their god
because what else is there to do?
Words, from dry cracked lips
an indifferent god
has yet to hear.
It rained yesterday, and the turbid puddles on the gravel road were wider than they’ve been since the spring thaw. I thought back to a dry summer, when a few hours after it rains (even an infrequent heavy rain) there was no sign it even had. The soil just drank it up.
Behind this poem was a critique of short-term thinking: how susceptible we are to immediate gratification; living for today and the hell with tomorrow. As in mining aquifers: consuming groundwater faster than it can be replenished. More particularly, though, was the idea of accelerating climate change and our collective heedlessness. When it will be too late for anything but prayer. . . . Yes, couldn’t once again resist throwing in a barb at religion!
(I was originally tempted to write contempt for religion, but that’s not really how I feel. Maybe contempt for the lack of intellectual rigour in faith-based belief, but not for the understandable need religion fills for people — consolation, community, ritual, and meaning — or contempt toward them. After all, life can be hard. It’s just that for me, I’m more willing to feel bad than believe in stuff someone just made up.
So believe to your heart’s content. But please don’t take it as license to kill the apostate, forcibly convert the heretic, or make war; to issue self-serving decrees in the name of some god; to ignore science; or to indoctrinate my children while making me join with you in prayer. Freedom from religion as well as freedom of it.
And I don’t buy the argument that without theology we’d descend into immorality and hedonistic decadence. What about basic humanism? Because you don’t need dogma to live ethically, or fear of hellfire to be good. Goodness for its own sake works better and means more.)
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Undone - Sept 29 2026
Undone
Sept 29 2026
The unfinished novel.
The poem that lost its way.
The false starts, on crumpled foolscap
balled-up on the floor.
And the essay
I swear I'll get to soon enough.
A lifetime of good intentions
. . . and things left undone.
Letters I wish I'd sent,
apologies
that went unsaid,
regrets, I kept to myself.
The love I felt
but never expressed.
Because the time was never right.
Because I feared rejection.
Because I felt unworthy
to
even try.
And because it was better to imagine
than let the dream die.
But it did, of course;
she got on with her life
mine
stalled.
Like a student who procrastinates
until it's too late
to ask for extra time.
Like the poem
too clever by half
that doesn't have a heart.
And like the novel, in search of an end
that goes off in all directions
until it stammers to a stop.
We regret the things in life we didn’t do more than the bad choices we made and things we actually did. Because it’s easy to idealize the things we only dream about, while reality is never perfect. The life we didn’t have could always have been better than the one we lived.
Doesn’t every writer have at least 1 unfinished novel mouldering in a desk drawer? Or on a corrupted computer file? (I hasten to say not me: I have neither a novelistic imagination nor a novelistic life!) And since I hate waste, every false start of a poem gets tortured to a conclusion — no matter how good or bad!
But aren’t all lives undone? Never fully complete? Never come to a definitive and satisfying end? I hear of dying people who say they have no regrets. I very much doubt this. Perhaps memory fails. Perhaps they’ve absolved themselves. Or maybe it’s the morphine. I already have lots of them. On my deathbed, they’ll still be there.
Coming to a stop is not the same as coming to an end. An ending concludes. It reaches its destination, just as a good novel leaves nothing unresolved, no loose threads. While a stop just runs out of gas.
Pulp - Sept 28 2026
Pulp
Sept 28 2026
I have distilled my words
down to pure alcohol.
They will intoxicate
merely by proximity;
a whiff, with your eyes closed,
a kiss
with booze on her breath.
And unlike wine
these spirits
aren’t corrupted by age.
No mixers or garnishes.
No spritzers, or umbrella drinks.
Just a shot glass
of hard liquor
tossed back in one gulp.
Concision, she says,
wielding her red pen
like a scalpel dripping blood.
Embellishment’s for sissies,
while 200 proof
is proof of manliness
— absinthe
or whisky straight
my editor insists.
And teetotallers?
Ahhh, the abstainers
who claim to be virtuous
and high on life.
Who want to burn the confessions
and self-indulgent memoirs,
long Russian novels
with polysyllabic names.
Torch the sappy romances
with run-on sentences,
sex
too embarrassing to read.
But happily, recite razored poetry
they know by heart
or make up their own.
Then marvel at the trees
instead of turning them to pulp.
I began to write this as an antidote to my usual prolixity. An act of self-discipline. Because I’m my own editor, and apparently not a very good one!
I was determined: 10 lines max. A quickie. Unsurprisingly, I failed. … On the other hand, I think if every word counts, it passes the test.
But it came fast. Wrote itself. And — I think — propulsive enough to seem short! Anyway, while distillation is good, who wants 200 proof alcohol? It burns going down, and tastes like disinfectant.
It’s about concision, yes; cutting the fat. But also — as the last two lines (as well as earlier in high on life) so abruptly clarify — about eliminating the intermediary and interpreter; and instead, living life first hand. Because language is at best a poor metaphor for the real thing.
I always instinctively distrusted poetry that came too easily. But later learned that those are often the best. This one was pure stream of consciousness. A flow state. I began with no idea where it would go: just took dictation, while letting it take me by the hand. ( . . . Actually, most of my poems feel like that!)
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