An Agnostic’s Repetitious Sermon in Haiku

20a. I cannot forgive/
Religions their predations/
Though I know better/
#haiku

20b. I cannot forgive/
Religions their predations/
Though I know that’s MAN/
#haiku

20c. I cannot forgive/
Religions their shortcomings/
Though I know better/
#haiku

20d. I cannot forgive/
Religions their shortcomings/
(Man should not play G_d)/
#haiku

20e. I cannot forgive/
Religions their shortcomings/
(Though faith may ease pain)/
#haiku

20f. I cannot forgive/
Religions their shortcomings/
(Perhaps I’m jealous)/
#haiku

20g. I cannot forgive/
Religions their shortcomings/
(This has cost me much)/
#haiku

20h. I cannot forgive/
Religions their shortcomings*/
(I’m not sure G_d cares)/
#haiku *predations

Simple Truths Sonnet

Simple Truths
The simplest truths obscure the best lies/
If you think the meaning is obvious/
Look up at the happy blue summer skies/
& know how it covers the blackness of space/

In life what is apparent is rarely/
Even vaguely materially real/
With work and introspection we barely/
Understand the selves we love with such zeal/

Simplicity is the strange, cruelest trap/
That, mesmerized, we willingly fall in/
Like glistening amber, when it’s still sap/
Easy answers delude the strengths within/

So when “simple” is the “best” solution/
Excavate beneath ease’s pollution/

Desire Sonnet (all 4 drafts)

(revisions in reverse order)

Desire Sonnet
draft 4.
How intoxicating human desire/
Imaginations and passions inspire/
All-encompassing, these needs created/
By which nothing real* can be abated/

Desire refocuses human vision:/
Within, our souls surrender decisions;/
What we want to possess, possesses us/
We are controlled by our uncontrolled lust/

Within all living beings there exists/
A primitive saboteur who then twists/
Our selfish wants into eternal needs/
Without conscious awareness that it’s greed/

Our deep lusts, fantasies, (& tiny wants)/
Are fruits of our subconscious Ego’s taunts/
*true

Desire Sonnet
draft 3.
How intoxicating human desire/
Imaginations and passions inspire/
All-encompassing, these needs created/
By which nothing real* can be abated/

Desire refocuses human vision:/
Within, our souls surrender decisions;/
What we want to possess, possesses us/
We are controlled by our uncontrolled lust/

Within all living beings there exists/
A primitive saboteur who then twists/
Our selfish wants into eternal needs/
Without conscious awareness that it’s greed/

Our deep lusts, fantasies, & even needs/
Are flowers of our Ego’s little seeds/
*true

Desire Sonnet
draft 2.
How intoxicating human desire/
Imaginations and passions inspire/
All encompassing, are needs created/
That nothing mortal can at all make sated/

Desire refocuses human vision:/
Within, our souls surrender decisions;/
What we want to possess, possesses us/
We are controlled by our uncontrolled lust/

Within conscious human beings there is/
An enemy spy with a trite “pop-quiz:”/
Biological or cultural? What’s/
That which overrides or undermines thoughts/

Our deep lusts, fantasies, & even needs/
Are flowers of our Ego’s little seeds/

Desire Sonnet
draft 1.
How intoxicating human desire/
Imaginations and passions inspire/
All encompassing, are needs created/
That nothing mortal can at all make sated/

Desire refocuses human visions:/
Within, our souls rescind decisions;/
What we want to possess, possesses us/
We are controlled by our uncontrolled lust/

Within conscious human beings there is/
An enemy spy with a trite pop-quiz:/
Biological or cultural? What’s/
That which overrides or undermines thoughts/

Our deep lusts, fantasies, & even needs/
Are flowers of our Ego’s little seeds/

2 Sad Sights

In the last couple of months I’ve seen two of the saddest things. The first was the paralyzed squirrel that had spent part of the fall scampering around outside of Building 7, pulled only by its front legs. I guess someone must have been feeding it, maybe the nice lady who feeds the cats also brought something down for him to eat, because he was there for a few weeks or a month. The next to the last time I saw him was right by the service exit. He clawed his way out of the bushes and looked up at me as I was heading out with my bike to work, He paused and looked straight at me and I thought, “hope it gets better, you’ve been scrambling like this for a while.” I got on my bike and pedaled off, hoping I’d be able to stay un-paralyzed.
When I was walking Lucky later that day I saw the squirrel about 20 yards from that door pulling autumn leaves up around himself. It was like he was making a little bed by one of the trees he could no longer climb. I guess I knew he was dying then. But why the cover of leaves? DId he want to stay warm? Did he know he’s soon be somebody’s dinner? Did he want to avoid being dinner? The wind blew and exposed his nonparalyzed upper limbs and head and he quickly pulled some leaves back over him. I said goodbye, because I knew this was his end. I was kind of sad, but also happy that I was aware of this struggle for life in nature.

The other calamity I saw was on recycling day on the Upper East Side the day I went to the Whitney with Linda and Mary from California. I was running to the cafe that Lennox and Chandler were sitting at to bring the Calvin and Hobbs book I was carrying to them. On 76th street between Park and Lexington I came across a jumbo clear recycling bad that was full of maybe 30 Kodak rotating slide carousels. I had to know what the photos were of, so I tore a small hole in the bag and pulled out two slides from one of the slide-show carousels that people used to give slideshows before the internet made sharing and collating images so east. (I remember when one of my parents hippy friends came back from some exotic trip (Dan Deitz to Germany? Judy Geisman to India?) and we were all dutifully assembled to see one or two carousels of that trip with their commentary (as the adults got high and drunk). It was boring, though the images were interesting, as they got high and drunk the adults were less and less interesting.
The two slides I got were of Sofia Bulgaria. One was of the “Church Alex Nevsky” (that looked like a mosque), the other was titled “rush hour, Sofia” Both were lettered in sloppy fountain pen writing. I would imagine that the 10,000 slides in those thirty carousels were all also titled in fountain pen. Someone spend their life visiting Eastern Europe (& other places), taking photographs and editing them into slide shows. After each slide was viewed, labeled, carouseled the photographer-traveler, tourguide and slide-show purveyor would invite people to live vicariously though his travels.
Alas, he dies and someone put these slides to the curb to be recycled. What treasures of a life were in those bags? What treasures am I saving for Mason or Chandler or Lennox to throw to the curb some day? Nothing so exotic as a trip behind the soviet Iron Curtain. Sigh.

Forward

36. I struggle with fear/
Doubting my abilities/
& accomplishments/
#haiku

37. Fear keeps me from life/
Scaffolds insecurities/
Paralyzing me/
#haiku

38. I can do this job/
It is not beyond my skills/
I WILL push forward/
#haiku

39. Worst that can happen/
Is I look a bit stupid/
I should care less/
#haiku

40. Dawn’s iridescence/
Blends today’s optimism/
With yesterday’s fear/
#haiku

42. Poems together/
Inspiring myself on/
A #haiku pep-talk/

http://bit.ly/XxoInV

Contented Sonnet

Contented Life Sonnet II
[RErevision]

I have scaled the dizzying heights in life/
Where style’s premiums don’t matter/
Enjoying simple pleasures with my wife/
Make youth’s sweet conquests trite anti-matter/

Garish achievement of modern excess/
Burnished by wealth & youth’s pneumatic curves/
Are distractions, mere possessions tasteless:/
Undermining dignity and reserve/

Life’s simple common everyday pleasures/
Companionship, comfort, community/
Are destroyed by modern drastic measures:/
(Disgusting excess’s impunity)/

So I will enjoy what I’m enjoying/
Though to wanton desire it’s annoying/

Contented Life Sonnet
[unrevised]

I’ve attained the high plateau in life/
Where style’s premiums don’t matter/
Enjoying simple pleasures with my wife/
Make youth’s competition seem like blather/

Garish achievement of modern excess/
Burnished by wealth & pneumatic youth’s curves/
Those distractions, of possessions tasteless,/
From the straight and narrow will make you swerve/

Life’s simple psychological pleasures/
Companionship, comfort, community/
Are consumed by modern drastic measures/
(Disgusting excess’s impunity)/

So I will enjoy what I’m enjoying/
Though to consumerism:* annoying/
*capitalism

10a. I wrote a sonnet/
On middle aged contentment/
Because I’m happy/
#haiku

10b. I wrote a sonnet/
On middle aged contentment/
To convince myself/
#haiku

Academic Abolitionist Sonnet

Editing Brown Sonnet

Addressing this paper academic/
Re-reading & re-writing ideas/
Illustrates my problems are endemic:/
From the pompous I want the most cheers/

The thesis: “undermined literacy”/
By a bright loyal abolitionist/
Was intellectual apostasy/
Formal language makes Blacks contortionists/

I am like runaway slaves showing off/
With my pompous elevated language/
I want my enemies their hats to doff/
For this approval I am most anxious/

It is no small irony I study/
People from long ago like me/

Non Urgent Emergency Room

1. The Q18 bus/
To Astoria E.R./
Afraid of Doctors/
#haiku

2. Dirty bus windows/
Obscure the present future/
Adding foreboding/
#haiku

3. I’m afraid of this/
Emergency room visit/
I’m afraid to say/
#haiku

4. Injuries remind/
Me of my mortality/
This life is finite/
#haiku

5. This bus ride: noisy/
Conversations of others/
Matter to speakers/
#haiku

6. E.R. Clerks are good/
Working for creaky system/
Insurance stays paid/
#haiku

7. Little girl bleeding/
Another casualty/
Of Woodside sledding/
#haiku

8. Father holds ice-pack/
Doting on his brave daughter/
In accented love/
#haiku

9. We’re all refugees/
From our usual sound health/
In the waiting room/
#haiku

10. Concentration camp/
People Waiting for health care/
From indifference/
#haiku

11. Mother & Son wait/
Hijab & Hip-Hop visit/
Injured family/
#haiku

12. Nurse turns son away/
Says: “you can translate” winking/
Letting both enter/
#haiku

13. Old man tells story/
Angling for pain killers/
Spurious details/
#haiku

14. Facts shouted indict/
Hospitals, projects & clerk/
An expert patient/
#haiku

15. Russians, Brazilians/
Jamaicans and the forlorn/
In “Camp Waiting Room”/
#haiku

16. Bengali man’s scarf/
Worn like a scott-plaid head-wrap/
Burberry hijab/
#haiku

17. Unfortunate day/
Spent in crowded waiting room/
Small, slow tragedy/
#haiku

18. Wedding ring removed/
Gold dust in the hospital/
From cut wedding rings/
#haiku

19. Got a shot for pain/
This dislocated finger/
Will be re-wrestled/
#haiku

20. Ketorolac shot/
Burns while injecting my arm/
Kills the pain quickly/
#haiku

21. Three left hand Ex-Rays/
With an overworked techie/
And no lead blankets/
#haiku

22. The X-rays can’t say/
How bad my dislocation/
Or where my day went/
#haiku

23. Tiny finger fracture/
And a hand surgeon visit/
The day crawls forward/
#haiku

24. A blind mother dotes/
On a cute nauseous daughter/
Explaining unseen/
#haiku

25. Bus heading back home/
Hand throbbing insistently/
Glad to be outside/
#haiku

Sledding in Woodside Queens 2013

35. Sledding in Woodside/
With the people of the world/
Human gravity/
#haiku

http://bit.ly/V7d1pW

2/10/13

50. The snowy hillside/
In Woodside’s Doughboy playground/
Is peppered with fun/
#haiku

51. Here Colombians/
Bengalis, Tibetans as/
Americans slide/
#haiku

52. Snowy experience/
ReCaptured digitally/
Are sent to tropics/
#haiku

53. iPad made movies/
Of happy Americans/
Are sent far away/
#haiku

54. Woman with hijab/
Gucci covered iPad films/
Her smiling children/
#haiku

55. Korean father/
Roars down the tree covered hill/
Ecstatically loud/
#haiku

56. Mexican fam’ly/
Unloads children & their sleds/
Then tackle papí/
#haiku

57. Americans all/
We enjoy democracy/
Of our acceptance/
#haiku

36. Sledding with children/
Overshot my playfulness/
Collided with age/
#haiku

37. Clenching rope handles/
Spinning beyond all control/
Damaged ring finger/
#haiku

38. Regretting my ride/
Because I injured myself/
Shows a lack of faith/
#haiku

39. Staying young inside/
More important than safety/
For immortal* souls/
#haiku *eternal

40. Aging bodies recede/
To within our comfort zone/
Abandoning youth/
#haiku

41. Aches and troubles/
Of old immaturity/
Are truly priceless/
#haiku

42. Youthfulness’s worth/
Though dangerous to old men/
Keeps their spirits fresh/
#haiku

43. Adventure’s value/
Is an internal journey/
Exploring within*/
#haiku *our souls

44. The pains in my body/
Temporarily remind/
My mind I’m alive/
#haiku

45. This throbbing finger/
Beats the rhythm of my heart/
Where I can feel it/
#haiku

46. I regret nothing/
Because I’m educated/
By experience/
#haiku

47. While I don’t like pain/
It reminds me I’m alive/
Here to live for now/
#haiku

48. Wedding tourniquet/
The ring keeps my red blood in/
The heart of my life/
#haiku

49. Ring’s Symbol becomes/
An active agent in life/
I cherish it so/
#haiku

[Annotated] Dawn

[Annotated] Morning Meditation Haiku

13. I love my mornings/
Where I’m alone with my thoughts/
(Seeing connections)/
#haiku

A. I rise painfully/
Early existing alone/
Where I contemplate/
#haiku

B. This time before dawn/
Where I can think for myself/
Is precious to me/
#haiku

14. The complexity/
Of my cluttered life reveals/
My life’s harmony/
#haiku

C. The contemplation/
Morning alone time gives me/
Permits me to see/
#haiku

D. The plain facts require/
Insight and contemplation/
To be clarified/
#haiku

15. The mechanisms/
Allowing my happiness/
Are revealed to me/
#haiku

E. When I examine/
The components of my life/
I see I am blessed/
#haiku

F. Blessings aren’t magic/
Or some gift given by G_d/
They’re just perception/
#haiku

16. Each complicated/
Asset or embarrassment:/
Opportunity/
#haiku

G. Particular facts/
Can be opportunities/
With some adjustments/
#haiku

H. When I step away/
And ignore disappointment/
Life is always good/
#haiku

17. The mechanical/
Nature of mistakes & joys/
Grind out my heaven/
#haiku

I. Events examined/
Should be interpreted well/
To find the blessings/
#haiku

J. Possibilities/
Fail to materialize/
To bring more chances/
#haiku

18a. Smoothing rough edges/
Takes some painful polishing/
Understood alone/
#haiku

18b. Smoothing rough edges/
Requires painful polishing/
Understood later/
#haiku

K. Remediating/
Life’s problems are sometimes gifts/
The work is the gift/
#haiku

L. It is with distance/
That we can see benefits/
Of life’s small problems/
#haiku

19. My meditation/
& morning contemplation/
Expose my blessings/
#haiku

M. My observation/
Transforms as if alchemy/
Life into Heaven/
#haiku

N. Find your alchemy/
Of optimistic thinking/
By contemplating/
#haiku