Real Talkers - Oct 18 2025

 

Real Talkers

Oct 18 2025



Some get tongue-tied

and stumble over words. 

Others lose their train of thought

drift off

peter out.

Some search,

filling the space with likes and ummms

and random ya knows?  . . . 

   . . .  as if appealing

for affirmation.

While the good ones 

are clever enough to stop,

enticing their listeners 

to lean in closer.

While many more

fear speaking up entirely. 

The rest, though

are real talkers.

Who can either bore, or mesmerize,

entertain

push away

interrupt.

Who can’t be derailed,

steamrolling ahead 

no matter what.

Who are too in love

with their own precious words

to still their wagging tongues.

Who, when they relinquish the floor

are just coming up

with what to say next.

Who need to learn

to listen better

and be fully present

or end up by themselves.

Eye-to-Eye - Oct 17 2025

 

Eye-to-Eye

Oct 17 2025



Eye-to-eye with a mouse

on the pantry's upper shelf

as I entered and turned on the light.

I whiplashed back, it froze

before darting off in a blur of grey

and a scuttle of tiny feet,

a small timid creature

more shocked than me.

Heavy rain

and mice, flooded out, have materialized

in this this dark dry refuge,

this emporium 

of unexpected abundance.

Have put a lie to the conceit

that home is a safe redoubt,

these walls

a bulwark against the world.

I shudder, picturing Malthus’ dire prophecy;

exponential mice

scurrying about

as if they owned the place,

until my home becomes unliveable

and has to be condemned.

But still, I feel terribly ambivalent

seeing the dead mouse

head crushed 

dangling from the trap,

fresh blood down its neck

the same bright red as mine.

I hold it out at arms’ length

and carry it to the trash;

an ignominious burial,

out-of-mind and out-of-sight.

A warm-blooded mammal

too much like me.

A small defenceless animal

out to make a living

unheard and unseen.

And a member of a family

who will be missed. 

Perhaps a mother

with hairless pups

huddled in their hidden lair,

emitting high-pitched squeaks

of unrequited hunger.

I begin to understand the Buddhist monk

who wouldn't harm a fly,

the monastery

where rats run free.

The soft underbelly

of human empathy,

the fatal flaw

of compassion.

Build a better mousetrap, and they will come.

Or hope

for no more heavy rains

torrential downpours.

For no more Biblical floods

that carry all of us away;

both mice and men,

hungry and fed,

sinner and saint.

I’ve Been Asked to Write About Joy - Oct 16 2025

 

I’ve Been Asked to Write About Joy

Oct 16 2025

A simple word

it seems as anodyne as nice

as non-committal.

But joy

is no such wishy-washy word;

it’s all-in

transcendent

lost in itself.

So when — if ever — did I last feel joy?

When was I transported

and overwhelmed?

I think of rites of passage,

like a first kiss

a starter house.

I think of transitions,

like graduation

a promotion at work.

But these feelings are mixed,

the elation

tempered with anxiety,

the friction of change

we innately resist.

While joy is all-encompassing

has no self-doubt.

It’s an act of faith,

a blind leap,

a total surrender.

Yet I can’t remember

ever letting myself capitulate.

Did I really fall in love,

or did I cling to the edge of the cliff

just to be safe?

Did I take it as a given,

drift

instead of dive?

But when they asked about sorrow

it took no time,

so many moments of despair, desolation, and loss

came quickly to mind.

If life is a zero sum game

then I’m not doing it right.

I console myself

that joy comes of its own accord.

That like the happiness

that keeps eluding you

the more you seek it out,

live with passion

and your heart exposed

and joy will somehow find you

despite yourself.

Ghosting Through - Oct 15 2025

 

Ghosting Through

Oct 15 2025

I have no tattoos, piercings, or sculpted hair.

Wear no studs, make-up, or bling.

I do not dress to draw attention,

and public displays of affection

make me squirm.

A small enough man,

I can ghost through life

largely undetected

in the press of humanity.

Tend to avert my eyes

and move fast,

talk softly, if at all

and keep my head down.

I’m not sure if this modesty

is a sign of humility 

or insecurity;

if I know my place

in the cosmic order of things

and wisely defer,

or fear being judged

shamed

exposed.

As if I had something to hide.

As if a spotlight

had me in its glare.

As if anyone else would care,

let alone gossip

snark

or stigmatize.

Yet I’m repeatedly amazed

at what people get away with

in plain sight.

Because no one’s really watching.

Because we’re all too self involved.

And because we see what we expect to see

hear selectively

too soon forget.

And yet …

I still feel constrained.

As if temperament demands it

and the habit’s now ingrained.

Or could it be fear?

Too pusillanimous

to risk,

live a little

  … take a chance

      … go big?

 Will I one day look in the mirror

and find I’ve disappeared;

nothing to see

but the wall at my back?

Will I inch my nose

as close as I can

to the cold reflective surface,

yet not even see a breath 

fogging up the glass?

Might Soon Be Set Upon - Oct 14 2025

 

Might Soon Be Set Upon

Oct 14 2025



A full moon

ducks behind scudding clouds.

In the sudden darkness

I feel exposed,

as if light alone

could offer protection.

There’s a rustling in the woods,

a furtive scurrying

through the crisp fall leaves.

I imagine a small animal

armed with tooth and claw

and lightning speed,

making up for its size

in fierce aggression.

A low creaking rings out,

like rusty-hinges

scraping back-and-forth.

My shoulders tense,

as if a heavy door 

will slam shut behind me;

despite my intuition

it’s just wood-on-wood,

a fallen snag

in the crux of a branch

and rocking in the gusts.

The bird, calling at night

has a sinister undertone;

what business has a creature of flight

in this impassable dark?

As we walk, the sound seems to follow us,

as if we’re being watched

might soon to be set upon.

Are those dogs

howling in the distance?

  . . . Or wolves?

I strain to hear,

almost sure

the sound is edging closer.

I walk uneasily

sensing danger all around.

While the dogs are oblivious,

darting into the woods

and barking at shadows,

dashing after scent 

noses glued to the ground.

Trails so faint, I can’t imagine how,

but this is their super-sense

and all day long

they swim in smell.

So why this anxiety?

Why is every sound a threat?

Is it me

 — my paranoid streak

and nervous disposition —

or are we unwanted here?

Intruders

as the creatures of night

emerge from their ungodly lairs

to perform their secret rituals

engage in life and death?

Trees loom up on either side,

dark, and impenetrable.

A chill runs down my neck.

I call the dogs to come

and double my pace.

Burning the Lot - Oct 12 2025

 

Burning the Lot

Oct 12 2025

The minimalist 

ideally must be rich

to show off all that space

in his airy mansion

or trendy loft.

Because less is more;

   …more virtue than his peers,

       ...more enlightened than his class,

            … more smug

                than his status-seeking counterparts.

While the less privileged

accumulate

as best they can.

Like a winter animal putting on fat

to survive the coming cold,

the less well-off

on the knife edge of want

prepare for austerity.

I was raised to be frugal

never waste.

But I have the means and the space

so stuff accumulates

despite my better angels;

there, just because,

needing upkeep, collecting dust

or simply keeping up

with what’s expected of someone like me.

But my preferred aesthetic

is an empty room

in white or eggshell.

It has large windows with functional blinds,

and a painting or two

that remind me of nature.

But no ornament, embellishment, or clutter;

nothing

that belongs in a museum

behind a velvet rope.

A spare room,

except for a single chair

side table

reading light.

All I really need

in a culture of excess,

were acquisition rules

and ostentation

overwhelms good taste.

So my estate, with little to inherit

will not end in litigation

over who gets what.

Will not burden my successors

with burning the lot.

Customer Service - Oct 11 2025

 

Customer Service

Oct 11 2025

A disembodied voice

instructs me on which numbers to press;

or, if I’m lost, how to start again.

“Pound”, she says, is my deus ex machina,

descending from the heavens

to wipe the slate clean

and begin anew.

If only all my sins

were so easily expunged. 

She’s a bad listener

but pleasant enough;

ignoring when I interrupt,

but disarming me

with her girl-next-doorish voice

and unflustered delivery.

She holds my hand

as we navigate the phone tree,

forgetting passwords

circling back

and stumbling down false branches,

only to find

that customer service is closed.

I can only guess

whether my trusted guide is prerecorded

or synthetic;

an unpaid intern, doing her best,

or a clever simulacrum of humanity

with perfect diction

and free of human flaws.

I talk loudly and impatiently,

long to be heard.

But she is imperturbable,

a brick wall

of affable indifference,

persisting with her script

no matter how insistently I ask

to speak to someone real.

How futile it feels

shouting into the phone

and going unheard,

unseen,

unserved.

A living human being, made of squishy stuff

in a cybernetic world;

autonomous machines,

grinding on

with steely fortitude 

no matter what.

Busyness - Oct 8 2025

 

Busyness

Oct 8 2025

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;  

I know the voices dying with a dying fall  

Beneath the music from a farther room.  

So how should I presume?

(T.S. Eliot

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)

Eliot counted out his life 

in coffee spoons.

While I look back

at all the to-do lists

that have littered my life,

the small pieces of paper

I’ve balled-up and tossed 

in a long trail behind me.

The life of a completist,

smugly satisfied

with boxes checked-off.

Because I was raised to be productive;

like a shark, who must swim to breathe

forward motion is everything.

Stop to smell the coffee

and you risk the sin of sloth;

and if you must commit a deadly sin

why not one that's fun?

I should have kept all those lists,

an archive 

of — if not a life well-lived — then at least a life of busyness.

And if never quite complete

 — because more always needs doing —

at least it will have been

an orderly one.

Nothing permanent, of course;

no monuments,

no legacy

of virtue or vice

to account for in the afterlife,

just the small diurnal chores

that become hard to ignore

once they’ve made the list.

And if, in some altrnative life

I’d given in

to a temporary madness?

I don't mean living in squalor

or tripping ayahuasca;

I mean walking the dogs

when I should have been at work,

sipping coffee on the deck

as the sun sets and shadows lengthen,

writing poems

the world wouldn’t miss

and no one really cares for?

But no, I was raised too well for that.

And time is wasting

when there are coffee cups to sort 

saucers to stack,

spoons

impatiently waiting

to return to their drawer.

And with garbage day

the next chore to check,

there's a rubbish bin of lists

waiting by the door.

According to the rules, of course:

out by the curb

the night before.

They Always Are - Oct 7 2025

 

They Always Are

Oct 7 2025

I don’t go looking for signs.

I don’t believe in portents, omens, or auguries.

And if things happen for a purpose

which I very much doubt

it’s not for me to know.

But still, they find me.

Or at least, looking back

the signs seem clear enough.

Because the human mind

is a pattern-finding machine,

connecting dots

like a map to the stars 

in a clear night sky;

constellations, plain as day

you can’t unsee

once you’ve been shown.

Recurring patterns everywhere 

if you look long and hard.

Some are even true.

But the oracles and mystics,

soothsayers, prophets, and seers

keep their predictions vague

forget how often they’re wrong.

And coincidence does happen.

Synchronicity 

can be by accident.

And why can’t happenstance, good or bad

be as random as cards?

After all, you aren’t the centre of the universe,

the earth turns

indifferent to us.

Still, I swear I saw it coming.

Don’t tell me

we see what we want to see

what we expect.

The signs were there,

they always are.

A Change in the Weather - Oct 6 2025

 

A Change in the Weather 

Oct 6 2025

The cold front seemed to portend

something more than the end

of a late-in-life summer 

that felt like school was out,

as if we were young

hot-blooded

and had three whole months

to do as we pleased.

It was there in that cool glance

lack of affection

turned back

I saw, but didn’t register. 

I wasn’t ready

and failed to dress for it.

It was if the warm weather

had left me thin-blooded

and my resistance soft.

As if against my better judgment

I’d come to expect 

that sultry summer would never end;

even as the days grew short

and the nights were long

in the empty bed

where more and more

I slept alone.

It began with dull skies

a cool breeze

and a cold hard rain.

The parched ground was also hard,

so the water pooled

before sinking in

where it could replenish the earth.

That is, if there ever is another spring

in these northern latitudes

of wintry temperaments

and careful distances.

Not that the dark clouds

hadn’t been there all along

hovering on the horizon.

But then, aren’t they always there;

if not exactly on

then just beyond?

Because it’s in the nature of weather to change;

rain, hail, hurricanes

or the first wet snow.

Still, I was caught off guard.

A cold

that went to the bone

and chilled my heart.