Saintliness and Sin

   

Saintliness and Sin

 

Is it possible, within the city's

Bustle, to be quiet—

To walk or sit in peace amidst

The clamor of the riot?

 

I had often tried to do this, tried to

Slow from moving fast—

To pause and breathe and gather in—

Although this didn’t last.

 

And though one thing or other

Would come and prick my bubble,

If I’d ever stalled within this,

I could be in bigger trouble.

 

To disengage from madnesses

Of fear or scorn or rage

Invites, alas, no kindnesses

From those who still engage. 

  

Within a mass hysteria,

As in a mad stampede,

Whoever tries to slow or stop

Is trampled well indeed!

  

******

 

There’s the yin within the yang and there's

The yang within the yin.

So day and night can alternate

And saintliness and sin.

 

And so I laugh when fit to cry

And weep as I am smiling.

I venture out in stormy rain

And run in when it’s shining.

 

I listen to our “enemies”,

I question all our wars

And hum my verse to Venus when

The others sing to Mars.

 

I see the sides to everything

As often as I can.

I see the Muslim in the Jew,

The woman in the man.

 

But still I cannot slow enough,

Within the rush we’re in,

To be at peace as wars abound—

Be clear amidst the sin.

 

2025 Nov. 13, Thu.

(4th, 5th, & last 2 quatrains, Nov. 19)

Berkeley, California

 

The World Wide Web-2025-10-20-22

  
The World Wide Web
 
We’re now acquainted with the “World Wide Web”,
But keep forgetting there’s another one
That spreads its filaments across the globe
And snares us insects for the spiders’ meals.
 
As long as we are trapped within the webs
Of Mammon's spiders, spun with wage and tax,
With real estate, insurance, lease and rent,
And shares and interest, we will all remain,
 
Except for some who’re fortunate or “smart”,
The captive slaves of those who spin the webs
That all together serve to trap the rest,
However much they struggle, each in place.
 
******
  
But how to extricate ourselves, I ask,
From lifelong bondage? Each of us are part
Of this, the system, which, in peace and war,
Exploits the workers, trapped by how they earn
 
Their sustenance. We’re subject still to whims
Of bosses, markets—just as serfs had been
To all the “lords” who rode upon their backs
And fed on all the endless work they did. 
 
I do not know, for others tried and failed
Whose strength and knowledge far exceeded mine.
I only know the path we’re on is that
Of needless bondage and of endless pain. 
 
******
  
Let’s wake and rise and educate ourselves
On all the struggles past. They were not in vain:
So much of courage, labor, sacrifice—
So many lessons, which we need to learn.
 
The wizards weave their spells and lo, we see
The miracles the sciences and crafts have wrought.
And yet, for bare essentials, we depend
On systems dark, as all is sold and bought,
 
Including those elected, not to serve
The voters but their funders. Let us strive
For truth and justice, work to disregard
The cynics and refute the endless lies.
 
2025 October 20, Mon.
(last three strophes added  Oct. 22)
Berkeley, California
 

Resolve

  
Resolve
 
How hard it is to leave our comfort zones
To face the full and harsh realities. 
It's so for each of us, within our lives,
And so for groups that shy from verities.
 
And yet, for each of us, there's no escape.
And so it is for groups and nations too.
It's better to resolve to face the truth—
For each collective, as for me and you.
 
How often can one see, in retrospect,
How daft, misguided, one had been.
So also, groups and nations lose their sense
And stoop to actions lethal and obscene.
 
******
 
The angels and the devils live within
Our “foes”, our “friends”, and also you and me.
The monster and the saint are both in us—
And this is what we often fail to see.
 
We cherish those we love—and that is good,
But often draw a circle that excludes
The others, whom we tend to then perceive
As aliens—or even demon-broods.
 
And so, deluded, dulled by myths we’re taught,
We’re snared and fashioned by the liar’s art.
Accepting then the endless lies we’re fed,
We lapse in sense in both the mind and heart.
  
****** 
  
The “races”, tongues, and cultures mix and so
They make the mixtures that we humans are.
And yet we puff with pride and hiss with hate
Against our fellows—while we wage our wars.
 
The soldiers, who are led to kill, be killed—
They follow orders as they’re trained to do,
But if by chance they met the other side
In peacetime, each might share a meal or two.
  
So much of caring humans give—and take,
And yet they’re led, by blinded fealty,
To senseless mayhem. Fathers, brothers rage,
As mothers, sisters cheer their cruelty.
  
****** 
  
Let’s wake, oh humans, turn from bondage, so
We open up our hearts and minds and eyes.
Let’s seek the truth, however hard that be;
Forsake our comforts, false, in easy lies.
  
So many lies, repeated endlessly,
By those who’re shameless, freed of ethics, laws,
Inclined to evil, ruthless, sparing none,
They feed the children, too, to Mammon’s maws!
  
Discern these monsters, understand their ways—
Relearn the history that’s been buried deep.
Resolve to work to bring some light again
To darkness, smiles to those who wail and weep. 
  
****** 
  
The angels and the devils live within
Our “foes”, our “friends”, and also you and me.
The monster and the saint are both in us
And this is what we often fail to see.
  
How hard it is to leave our comfort zones
To face the full and harsh realities. 
It's so for each of us, within our lives,
And so for groups that shy from verities.
  
And yet, for each of us, there's no escape.
And so it is for groups and nations too.
It's better to resolve to face the truth—
For each collective, as for me and you.
   
2025 October 18, Sat.
Berkeley, California
  

Blessing

 
Blessing

 
How blind we are to pain and misery—
Except when it affects us or our own!
How many smiling faces turned to grief,
How many vanished, never to return!

 
They still exist, within our inner realms.
We hear their laughter, see them smile and weep.
Their voices echo deep within us still—
And so they stay with us, until we leave.
 
 ****** 

 
How many images of scattered gore
And spattered blood—so red, that then congeals!
How much of terror and of horror, yet
They each are gifts that we can cherish still—

 
The images we saw, upon the screen,
Of men and women searching for their kin
And never finding them, because they’d been
Entombed below—or burned and blown to bits.

 
****** 

When death releases us from torture, pain,
Then death becomes a blessing and release.
And though we watched from very far away,
We learned the lessons, while the victims paid.

Some say their cause was hopeless, that they should
Accept their fate and bow and fade away.
We saw the children play, so full of life.
We saw them die. And yet they gave us life—

******  

For we were blind and now our eyes can see.
And we were deaf and now we hear again.
Our hearts and minds were opened and were blessed.
We bear their witness, with their joy and pain.

Can lives be lost to madness and regained?
Can laughter light those faces once again?
Alas! No miracles can bring them back to life.
And yet they live within us—gifting strength.

2025 October 12, Sun.
Berkeley, California

Treachery and Terror

  
Treachery and Terror
 
What use are treaties if they are
Ignored and violated—
Not once or twice—repeatedly,
With greed and lust unsated?
 
When leaders lead in treachery
And the rest of us are blind,
Then those who deal in lechery
Leave all the rest behind. 
 
So public crimes and private ones
Compete in cruel sin,
And horrors terrorize the world—
The one we all are in.
 
****** 
  
If one has more of weaponry
And even more of lies,
And allies who support one’s acts,
Then all resistance dies—
 
Or so one might believe, until
It rises yet again
In phoenix-form, from fire and ash, 
To strike back yet again.
 
But this is not acceptable.
It can’t be tolerated.
This challenges one's dominance—
So genocides are slated.
 
2025 September 30, Tue.
Berkeley, California
 

Sense—and Sense

  
Sense—and Sense
 
The thoughts that clamor in our heads can drown
The softer senses that are needed still.
So also, surges of emotions blind
Our inner eyes to things that each should see.
 
And so we’re snared in tangles, or replace
The fuller views, with all their hues and shades,
Their whole perspectives, and their small details,
With caricature-sketches—mere cartoons.
 
These simplify our views but may obscure
The wider, deeper, sharper sight we need 
To judge and act with fuller knowledge—skew 
The balanced wisdom that we truly need.
 
They prejudice and blind us so we lose
Our empathy and sense of justice—guides
That steer our thoughts and words and deeds.
 
And so we’re blinded, shorn of sense and heart,
Let go of ethics, joy in cruelties…
 
****** 
 
We each are mortal and are limited
But can, by seeing, listening, absorb
The views of others—part of what they’ve seen—
And so expand and deepen how we see
The world we share—the world we all are in.
 
A while ago, we humans learned to write
And read—and this can surely serve us still.
So books can speak across the centuries, 
As letters bring us words from distant zones. 
 
And yet, increasingly, both diligence
And length are spurned. Impatience rules our lives,
And this again can lead to negligence.
 
The broader strokes can often brush away
The filigree that’s there in everything.
 
****** 
 
Even in one’s self, those voices stir
That often can’t be heard above the din.
So new distractions, loud, insistent, drown,
With noise, the softs that rise and die within.
 
And rage and fear arrive, like tides or storms,
To sweep away all else. We speak and act,
Too often rashly, causing hurt, regret, 
Or else retreat. We’re shorn of sense—and sense.
 
******
 
The first? Sensation, which is followed by
Perception and what follows after it—
The wisdom, balanced, based on sanity—
That speaks to us when souls are calm within.
 
This makes us pause to try to understand
And then to speak or act with sense, and not
The haste that comes with unconsidered heat.
 
And that’s the second “sense” we also need
To use the welter of our senses’ feeds
And all the thoughts and feelings that compete,
In ways not ruled by either fear or rage
Or mere disgust or jaded apathy.
 
We need the care and courage, born of sight,
That sees confusion, mixed with clarity, 
And quietly seeks to sift then each from each.
 
****** 
 
Within this world of pleasure twinned with pain,
With joy and sorrow mixed in turbulence,
So many labor long and wearily,
As others wreak their endless ravages.
 
We wend our ways through this—and hopefully,
We dwell at times in quiet sanity 
That gives us strength—and serves as sustenance.
 
Our mornings and our evenings come and go.
Our days and nights and seasons cycle through.
And some of us, at times, are blessed with peace—
The grace that comes to us with quietude. 
  
2025 Sep 20 Sat
Berkeley, California
  

Being

  
Being
 
Within the madness of the world we’re in,
The smiles and silences remain serene,
Reminding us of petals and of peace.
 
Amidst the clamor of the marketplace,
And all the thunder of the zones of war,
Are sounds as soft as in a lover’s sigh.
 
********** 
 
To doubt is human, given loss of sight. 
And even hope, like all of life, can die. 
How hard, the truth! How easy still the lie!
 
In all our aspects, there is kind-and-harsh.
So good and evil always coexist
In every being and throughout the world. 

*********
 
As cruelty and cowardice compete,
There still is courage and the caring heart. 
The stench of greed, the scent of sacrifice—
 
They both exist and do so side by side.
Amidst despair and darkness, there is light. 
We cherish it, as thousands lose their lives.
 
********** 
 
How slick the evil are with practiced lies!
They do the devils’ work but speak of gods.
They spin, as comforts, dank and dark cocoons.

********** 

 
How much of torture and of pain and grief?
How much of blindness that is past belief?
These all exist—as does the quiet faith 
That turns from malice, answers hate with love. 

 

**********

  
We'll never change the ones who will not see.
In dying, as in life, we still can be
In touch with silence, being touched by grace, 
With every torture still as ours to face 
In deepest stillness, with the firmest faith.
  
********** 
 
Within the madness of the world we’re in,
The smiles and silences remain serene,
Reminding us of petals and of peace.
 
Amidst the clamor of the marketplace
And all the thunder of the zones of war
Are sounds as soft as in a lover’s sigh.
 
2025 September 15, Monday
Berkeley, California