Equanimity

Oregon Coast, a picture of equanimity. August 2026.
Life hits lulls where everything seems
"Okay"—
Not "Good" not "Bad" just
beautiful balance, something which
seems more normal. Those highs
match lows for extreme stress on
emotions, on health, on mental
well-being. "Give me equanimity
or give me breath!" Thank you,
Patrick. Always thought you were
too wound up, but now I see you're
just like all of us: wanting to keep
our heads down for fear of getting
whacked in some cosmic Whack-a-Mole
game without rhyme, reason.

61/100

4×4

a haiku for modern drivers. I wish I had a photo

Tough white four-by-four
jacked up, one ton, approaches
speed bump: slow to ten!

60/100

Down memory lane

I recently revisited “How Dare You” by 10CC. What a great album for these times!  Particularly “I Wanna Rule The World”. If you feel a bit disrupted by politics lately, give it a listen. Some of the tunes just say “wow, what a masterful control of the pop genre.” Others? A bit close to the bone in these times. Seems to me that the band anticipated the 1980s rather well.

Waiting

Old folks get “procedures”…lots and lots of ’em. Is it worse to prepare for where cameras should never go, or wait for someone else’s? (Said “someone” adding two hours to the wait because the fine print for drinking liquids addressed certain drugs which said “someone” might have been taking.)

Was this grass gone to seed when I entered the building? August 2026.
Waiting
[.....]
Never my strong suit, worse
when it's unanticipated.
Need to blame someone. Hope
we're at fault; hope we're not.
Then again...what did you
plan to do today? Nothing
Much. What ARE you doing?
See? If two roads lead
to the same place, how can
one be better? (However:
could that dude perhaps
lower that video's volume?)

59/100

man with cat

A haiku today, the second of slight illness (on top of all the parts of me which don’t seem to want to work right). It’s OK. I think it just started raining, and I know I’ll mostly be just chillin’ tomorrow when my wife has one of those procedures all of us old people get….

Benny on lap. April 2023.

man with cat on lap
pet each other—happiness.
nubbins on his pants

58/100

Found poem 25August

Different voices have defined “found” poems differently. Here, I started with the opening line of a poem I drafted over a dozen years ago, then used random web pages to suggest a few words from which would spring the next line. I let whatever revealed itself in my creative half exist without immediately squashing it, merely shaping it, translating it from my interior language-without-words to a poor imitation in English. My Editor insisted on punching meaning into it, which I allowed. At the end I decided it needed to come full circle, thus lending meaning (I hope) to the final lines. In a way, this process worked similarly to something I’m getting ready to post (non-poem) when time allows.

We wear patchwork clothes, stitched by sadness
not to have seen snow leopards through our
blizzarding genesis. Inspired by writings we
don't understand, we personalize them
to make everything obtain meaning
where none existed. Welcome to your mission:
to drive home meaning to others while
pathetically struggling to find your own,
exhibiting your confidence which betrays
your lack of understanding. "the mic is yours,
Ken," as if he thinks I'm important. Games,
games fill cracks left when motive, meaning
dried up. More valuable than playing? Being.
Staying within where we find nothingness
imbuing everything-ness. Boldly facing it
without doing, comfortable in this. Yet,
in here we wear patchwork clothes,
satisfied they're stitched by sadness.

56/100

Friendly strangers

My friend in 2019, already 18 years toward strangerhood.
People become semi-strangers over

time, distance, lack of shared

experience. Reacquaintance

brings pain, ripping some kind of

bandage from maintained relationship.

I can't pull this string-can telephone

any tighter due to Earth's curvature,

certainly not through Einstein's

space-time fabric bending thingy.

I want old things to pop from

just-opened cans, fresh, familiar,

just as tasty as before. Is that

too much for me to ask?

55/100

Schism

Schism—that beautiful word.
Listen to it! Hear it?
Ripping through what once lived
whole? Its glorious "skuh"
scissoring toward schoolish "ism".
Feel its sanctimonious
surety? How pulling
apart gives one purpose,
direction, somewhere to
stand? So much easier
than moving toward that
Other Force. Loosening
rather than tightening.
Accepting difference
without judgment. Giving
SCHISM nowhere to live.
There's a reason those
yin/yang symbols have those
oppositely colored spots.

54/100

Habits

The older I get (and others I presume), the more difficult it becomes to fight against the tide of habit. For a borderline obsessive-compulsive, it’s extra hard.

My father’s rose, transplanted. July 2024.
Habits beget habits,
rituals, rituals.
Unfortunately,
predictable.
Grasp inspiring
spark, informer of
our ruts. Use its
spark, its flame,
burn away time's
accumulated dross.
Re-enter one's
original intent,
one's sincerity,
one's honesty.
Live there.

53/100