GONE FISHIN'

WORLDVIEW

CONSTABLE TIG

               Tiggy is our constable who sees
               That all about the house is up to snuff
               And isn’t always easy to appease
               And when you’re out of line will give you guff.

               Most of the time, she’s a sweet cuddlykins
               Lolling in languor for a tummy rub,
               But once alarmed, her other role begins:
               “Back off,” she barks, “or I’ll attack you, bub!”

               She may be little, but she’s fierce enough
               To hold presumed intruders all at bay;
               You’ll never find a mastiff half as tough
               Or able to make bad guys run away.

                    Though that’s her mode when raising an alarm,
                    Our cuddly Tig will win you with her charm.

*

HOMO FABER

               When we consider all the things we’ve made
               In our career as an artificer,
               No wonder that we think that God’s displayed
               A kindred trait in making us occur.

               It’s only natural to extrapolate
               That we arose from a creative act,
               One that we subsequently imitate
               Now both an artisan and artifact.

               Yet if we have assumed the powers of God,
               Then let’s employ our creativity
               In ways not to incur His wrathful rod,
               But rather to exalt humanity:

                    Let our inventive powers fabricate
                    What shows us grateful and then proves us great.

*

FATHER BROWN

               A consternation to the Constable
               Is Father Brown, the portly parish priest
               Who, when the current culprit’s pulled the wool
               O’er other’s eyes, the victims whom he’s fleeced,
               Will see more keenly and put two and two
               Together till at last it’s obvious,
               When false leads are discarded, what is true,
               Leaving the flummoxed constable to cuss.
               And since it’s just the same each episode,
               You’d think the copper would have learned respect,
               But no, he simply follows the same road,
               The priest teaching the inspector to inspect.
                    Yet though Brown always gets the inspector’s goat,
                    You’ll never see the godly father gloat.

*

EMPATHY

for Jeremy Rifkin

                I

               The Golden Rule depends on empathy
               To feel another’s suffering as your own,
               As if you were a single entity
               And not reliant on yourself alone:

               I feel your pain; I feel your joy as well
               Because somehow I can identify
               With your experience as if a spell
               Bound both of us with power we can’t deny.

               Although the Jungle’s Law would seem to make
               Us enemies dyed red in tooth and claw,
               We can cooperate with give and take
               To rise above that sad primordial flaw.

                    If ever it were time to turn the page,
                    Now is the hour for the Empathic Age.


               II

               A Global Wisdom Culture would entail
               A fundamental shift of attitude
               And resolution to blaze out a trail
               That humankind has never yet pursued.

               The way of conquest and supremacy,
               Of acquisition and of self-defense,
               Instead of following philosophy,
               Has led us far astray from wiser sense—

               A sense of empathy for our own kind,
               An insight into others’ suffering,
               A bond toward which we’re naturally inclined,
               Is what a new civility could bring.

                    A Global Wisdom Culture will arise
                    When we have wholly learned to empathize.


               III

               I feel your pain; I feel your joy as well,
               Which is clear evidence of empathy
               For what transpires with you seems to compel
               An equal, kindred resonance in me.

               Without such kind emotional rapport,
               We’d likely all be predatory foes
               Engaged in endless and uncivil war
               Till Earth’s experiment with life would close.

               Happily it’s otherwise, and we’ve the sense
               To recognize civility depends
               On fellow feeling and the recompense
               Of care with kindliness, from friends to friends.

                    Just as a sonnet ends with coupled rhymes,
                    The resonance of souls bodes happy times.


               IV

               The opposite of empathy is not
               Antipathy, but inability
               To feel the pain of someone else’s lot
               Then feel compelled to kindly ministry.

               This attitude seems rooted in denial
               That any sort of pain should be relieved
               But tolerated as a rightful trial
               Or as a punishment justly received.

               “I feel your pain” is where all care begins,
               Which means you must experience your own
               And then another’s, as if you were twins
               Acknowledging that neither is alone.

                    It’s only when two souls identify
                    As one that fellow-feeling can apply.



 

*

HOMO QUESTOR

               Since we are here to scan the vasty sky
               With instruments like Hubble’s telescope,
               We see the odds are infinitely high
               That we shall realize our fondest hope—
               That we are not alone; although the odds
               Of making contact with some aliens,
               Who might from our perspective seem like gods,
               Are slim, we would be glad for cosmic friends.
               Homo questor we might be better named
               Since we’re more seeker than we’re sapient
               And have done much for which we’re rightly blamed
               Yet we’re still yearning for enlightenment,
                    And hence we deeply probe the far-off stars
                    Leaving behind our worshipping of Mars.

*

OOPS

               I sit and sip my morning latte brew
               With yellow pad on lap and pen in hand
               In hopes a message from the Muse comes through,
               A boon I can request but not command.

               The best prerequisite’s a good night’s sleep
               So I might ponder in alert repose
               Ready for something rising from the deep
               That once for ancient minstrels arose.

               My daily practice is to contemplate
               While waiting to define what comes to mind
               In rhythmic words that aptly celebrate
               Whatever inspirations I’ve opined.

                    The last thing, though, I want my poem to tout
                    Is how its very being came about.

*

DEFENDER OF THE REALM

               Our little Tig is quite alert to all
               The morning’s sounds, to dogs especially,
               With no idea that someone so small
               And cute might not be taken seriously
               When she barks back a suitable rebuke
               To some bruiser from half-way down the block
               Whose name’s Goliath or else Marmaduke,
               Who’s bred to chase off varmints from a flock.
               But Tiggy is intrepid, nonetheless,
               Determined to protest the insolence,
               Which a small spate of yapping should redress
               That from her point of view would sound immense.
                    While her ferocity is laughable,
                    It makes our morning anything but dull.

*

NEO-METAPHYSICAL II

               My verse that’s somehow metaphysical 
               I do in the tradition of John Donne,
               Aiming to give you something choice to mull 
               Perhaps enlightening, or just for fun.

               My favorite topic is that very Mind
               By which all such inventions are conceived,
               With which the poet’s brain must be aligned
               So something valuable may be retrieved.

               The Cosmic Plenum is the very Source
               Of all such human creativity,
               To which ambitious authors need recourse
               For composition of their poetry,

                    Yet anyone who would invent what’s new
                    Must court that Muse who’s aptest to pursue.

*

 MIND’S MANIFESTO

               There’s mystery and maybe miracle
               In how all earthly life has come to be,
               On which for centuries our thinkers mull
               Attempting to resolve in theory.

               That random chance should stumble upon life
               Is no more probable than that a breeze
               Should play a Bach concerto on a fife—
               No, something in the universe decrees

               And then designs increased complexity
               Evolving over eons till at last
               Organic matter hatches in the sea
               And all before is instantly outclassed

                    By creatures of a transcendental kind
                    With access to the Universal Mind.

*

FOX DAY FOTOS

2015

* * *

THE SOURCE OF VERSE

               The way I exercise my cosmic mind
               Each day is by appealing to the Muse,
               For when I have my local brain aligned
               With Source, ideas come that I can use
               To build a verse which otherwise would lie
               Inchoate in my dim unconsciousness,
               But when I’m open to the vast supply
               Of the Akashic cache, I meet success.
               If this all sounds mysterious to you,
               It’s no less so to me, and yet I’ve learned
               That musing is the method to pursue
               When I’ve a notion yearning to be turned
                    Into a verse—which happily proclaims
                    That poetry is more than fun and games.

*

AKASHA III

            Akasha is an ancient name for what
            Today we’d designate the Cosmonet
            Connecting us beyond the little hut
            We call our brain to all there is to get
            By way of information and know-how—
            The storehouse of the Universal Mind,
            Access to which will readily endow
            A seeker with secrets that can unblind,
            The best of which is wisdom to discern
            What is in every case the highest good,
            A trove from which the ignorant can learn
            Distinguishing the should-not from the should,
                 For this Akashic realm is our real home
                 And the true source of any lasting poem.

*

REMINDER

                 When I depart this life, I’m told I’ll find
                 That my identity’s been reassigned,
                 And though I’m still a part of the One Mind,
                 I’ll take my separate way to be refined
                 According as my nature is inclined,
                 For while we’re all essentially entwined,
                 Each soul is independently designed
                 To fill that role the Cosmos has divined.

*

HOMO LUDENS

            I know a theory now that rivals faith,
            More credible than what mere scriptures saith,
            Revealing that our essence is eternal
            Returning after death to realms supernal—
            Called the Akasha, in the Hindu term,
            Which holy saints and sages all confirm—
            Yet still I wish for certain evidence
            That such a proposition makes good sense
            Or, better yet, is absolutely true,
            Which would affect so many things I do,
            Leading me to prepare a strategy
            For navigating all eternity
            As if this mortal venture were a game
            And Homo ludens our appropriate name.

*

AKASHA II

            What is the source of mind—is it the brain?
            And when we die, does it evaporate?
            Or can another theory explain
            Mentality’s beginning and its fate?

            Akashic theory does exactly that:
            It’s premise is that mind’s the source of all;
            The world is but a rabbit from its hat,
            Existence being responsive to mind’s call.

            “Idealism” is this theory’s name,
            That matter is the function of a thought
            And what seems tangible is but a game
            By which presumed reality is wrought.

                 To such covert proceedings we are blind,
                 Denying all that matters comes from mind.

*

POETUS INTERUPTUS

            Above the distance ambience of cars
            That wafts in from the west-side Interstate,
            The morning song of amorous blue jays spars
            For my attention in this dawn’s debate,

            But now construction noise from down the street,
            The beeps of trucks or tractors backing up,
            Intrudes and nearly guarantees defeat,
            Despite the inspiring fragrance from my cup.

            The day’s too far into its busyness
            For me to hear the whispers of the Muse
            Or hope this poem might achieve success
            Except to sing the stymied poet’s blues.

                 But suddenly the ambient noise has paused—
                 So maybe my long labors won’t be lost.

*

AT MEAD GARDEN







*

ENLIGHTENMENT

            About things ultimate, I’d rather know
            Than just believe, and be assured
            My consciousness will not just simply go
            Extinct, but of its waywardness be cured,
            Then hopefully advance toward higher states
            Of spiritual maturity to gain
            Such wisdom as a life well led creates,
            Lifting me to a more exalted plane
            Where from that prospect I may better view
            With full Akashic clarity the scope
            That cosmic consciousness reveals as true
            In actuality, not as a trope.
                 Enlightenment is now a metaphor,
                 But then a beam of brightness in my core.

*

BY MIND DESIGNED

            That mind arose from matter is a crock—
            As if time were invented by a clock;
            No, mind precedes materiality,
            Being the source of all that comes to be,
            And those of us who know we have a mind,
            Being conscious of our consciousness, will find
            That when our bodies die, our minds remain
            Along with errors that we must unstain
            In future incarnations on this Earth
            As we advance ourselves from birth to birth.
            It seems each life on Earth is but a round
            We cycle through, intent to grow more sound
            Until we ultimately realize
            What Homo sapiens sapiens implies.

*

AFTER EASTER

            This rising from the dead is what all do,
            Though not in body, as on Easter day,
            And death is nothing that we need to rue
            For our intelligence is here to stay.
            Though bodies pass away, our minds remain
            Eternally in the Ethereal field
            Where they are cleansed of every mortal stain,
            As on this earthly plane will be revealed
            When once again our essence reappears
            Embodied in a new identity
            Free to pursue fresh challenging careers
            And raise our standing in eternity—
                 Producing light, like current in a wire,
                 Glowing as resistances grow higher.

*

GOOD ODERLY DIRECTION

            Good Orderly Direction brought us forth
            And aimed us at the Pole Star in the north—
            We’re meant to take direction from the skies,
            Treading the arduous route toward growing wise.

            Though some choose to personify this Source
            As the godly Director of our course,
            Others more abstractly call it mind
            At large, with which it’s best to grow aligned.

            Whichever way, we’re not without intent,
            And though we’re free to go awry, grow bent
            And fail to find good purpose in our lives,
            It’s love toward which the saintly seeker strives.

                 The Mind that made the cosmos leaves us free
                 To choose to be as kind as we can be.

*

AKASHA   

            Yes, science is a mode of knowing that
            Can comprehend our planet is not flat,
            Despite appearance that it’s otherwise,
            A way of testing all that we surmise;

            But yet there’s much that lies beyond its ken
            Appealing to our metaphysic yen,
            Our sense that there’s a quintessential Source
            That disregarded leads to our remorse.

            Akasha is an ancient name for this
            Dimension, which discovery leads to bliss,
            While negligence of which we can’t afford:
            Akasha being the ground of all accord.

                 Our learning how to whisk away its veil
                 Is like discovering the Holy Grail.

*

NONLOCALITY

            There is a paradox in time and space
            That physicists call nonlocality,
            A “spooky action” at a distant place
            That matches action here and instantly.

            Our normal laws of physics don’t apply,
            As if space-time were suddenly compressed
            And something in the universe awry
            Or all the cosmos spiritually possessed.

            Perhaps it is the latter that we’ll find
            Since we are coming now to recognize
            That every seeming thing’s composed of mind,
            A nothing that, like magic, reifies.

                 In such a way, the Muse has made these lines,
                 My vacant mind receiving her designs.

*

SOURCE II

                      All those who think that matter is the source

                      Of mind will find their errant thought off course

                      By having hitched their cart before the horse;

                      The other way around they must endorse:

                      That mind is matter’s origin perforce,

                      The only way to joy and not remorse.

*