EMPATHY

I feel your pain, my sympathies go out,
My neurons mirror what your neurons suffer;
I know intuitively what you’re about
And tender tenderness, but wish you tougher.

For when you agonize, your grief is mine,
And only when you’re healed and whole can I
Be well, for so much do our souls align
That if you thrive I thrive, or die I die.

Let’s make a compact, then, that we’ll be kind
Not only to each other but ourselves,
For digging deeply, each in each, we find
We are the same, no matter where one delves.

The root of our complicit empathy
Reveals itself as shared identity.

*

WHY I DON’T WRITE STORIES

I suppose I’m as creative and inventive as many a writer of stories, but I’d rather make up reality than fiction.

I’d rather imagine how real things of the world, our ways of being and doing, might be better than they are, and then figure out how to change those ways accordingly, making stories that come true.

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WHY I WRITE FORMALIST VERSE

I write verses in traditional forms like sonnets and iambic pentameter couplets because I enjoy reading great poems in that traditional style and seek to imitate, emulate and update its artistry, turning it to contemporary matters and idioms, while preserving its ancient musicality and lyric allure.

Let other poets experiment and innovate, as they have done over the last century, establishing new aesthetic parameters, new modes and manners of poetry—which at root indicates nothing more than “something made,” the poet being but “a maker.” Yet what I prefer to make are words that sing, sweet words in measured verses, rhythmically aligned, that carry out a thought, yet bring more sense to sense through aural harmony.

(For those with ears to hear, the previous sentence contains a quatrain.)

*

AH-HA!

It came to me! Yet came to me from where?
I’m sitting here, when suddenly from thin air
This notion pokes my brain revealing how
Or what or where or why I’m seeking now,
And all comes clear, the mystery resolved,
With nothing seeming rational involved.

Is this a sub- or super-conscious feat
Proceeding from a dark, sublime retreat
Or dropping from on high, a heavenly gift
That sets my mind right when it’s gone adrift?
I’ll ponder this conundrum patiently
And wait to see what answer comes to me—

Perhaps it’s both, or there’s no up or down
But only in, where inspiration’s found.

*

ÉLAN VITAL

The animus, the energy, the force
Of our vitality—élan vital,
Mysterious, unfathomable source
Of every earthly creature, great and small—

What can we do but worship this with awe,
Perhaps personify it as a god
Or Mother Nature, red in tooth and claw,
Who raised up human beings from a clod?

Instead of worship, we might emulate
This same creative force, seeking to find
By science how to pry and extricate
The means by which this Wonder was designed.

And yet for all that scientists may try,
They’ll never answer the prime question: Why?

*

BEING

To think that evolution randomly
Occurred is literally absurd because,
Despite billions of years, complexity
Like ours is more than “accidental” does.

No rational calculation of the odds
Could ever lead to life and consciousness,
And yet to say the cause of this is God’s
Design personifies what’s just a guess.

A better supposition is to say
The cause of all remains a Mystery
Not likely to be solved by any way
We know, and we were best to let it be.

Yet still we cannot help but wonder how
We came to be, and how to be here now.

*

HOSTILE TAKEOVER

The body is the instrument of soul,
Which animates its members and directs
Its purposes toward soul’s intended goal,
The first and final cause of its effects.

But who am I, who hovers in between,
Not body and not soul, but something other,
A consciousness quite real but unseen,
Whom time reveals and sad events discover?

I am the Ego, who usurps the rule
Entrusted to the guidance of the soul;
It's I who turn a Wizard to a Fool,
Making the body play another role.

Unless my soul reclaim its rightful state,
Damnation is my destiny and fate.

*