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 
 

Does It Matter?

Does It Matter?

So does it matter, if a woman says
that she’s a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew
or Sikh, believing in a god or gods—
or Buddhist, Jain, for whom that matters not—
or is a follower of another creed
or disavows them all—or does not know?

And does it matter, if she says to you
that she’s a citizen of this or that—
or whether you perceive her lineage has
some more or less or none of that or this?

Or does it matter more, if through her acts
she shows that she has more of faith in you
than others might, and that she does not need
your passport shown to her and can perceive
your heart and mind, beyond your face and skin?

Does kindness have a country or a faith?
Is it confined within a species or a race?

Behold the being, of the man or dog,
in deeper essence than its outer form.
So many sorrows would be lessened, if
we found again this sight—that we have lost.

2018 July 8th, Sun.
Brooklyn, New York

  

Love’s Labor Lost? – II

  
Love’s Labor Lost? – II
   
How many poets, in how many tongues,
Have written verses, squeezing into lines,
That fit within a page, the wisdom, grief
Regret and joy they'd gathered, each, through lives
That soon would end?  How few are known today?
How many precious notebooks thrown away?
 
How many theses, labored on for years,
Reside in folders, doomed to dust, decay?
How many painters never sold a piece?
How many Einsteins couldn't get their chance?
How much of labor and of beauty lost?
How much of truth that never saw the day?
  
And yet—a labor is its own reward:
A poem or a a painting, done, fulfills
A need no praise or payment ever can.
A shelter, in an attic or a ditch,
From all the ravages of peace and war—
Plus time—are all a being asks for this.
 
A parent or a teacher, nurse or aide
Can spend a life in caring and in toil.
The worker in the mine or factory,
The peasant who must labor for his lord,
For all their work, receive a recompense
That rarely matches what the labor's worth.
  
What enterprise or government could do
Without the labor that the beings do—
Employed, enslaved or doing of their own
What can't be set to rules or supervised
Without reducing it to lifeless form—
The labor of the dead that's dull and dark.
  
The spirit that is calling us to work—
Be this to feed ourselves or far beyond—
It functions, in constraints, in spite of these.
But those who seek to tame it never will,
For it's by nature wild.  It lets us give
What can't be got by pay or punishment.
  
2016 February 21st, Sun. 4:47 am
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York  
---------------------------------------------------------  
Related:  

• Love's Labor Lost--Broverbs for Valentine's Day   ( http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2016/02/loves-labor-lost-broverbs-for.html )
• Broverbs of Pain 
  ( http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2016/01/broverbs-of-pain.html )  

The Softer Voice

 
The Softer Voice
 
Be it chicken, pig or human, or a fish that swims the seas,
There’s an eye in every being, that’s recording what it sees.
And the record of the ages is a tale of endless woe,
And the promise of the future is of sorrows, even more.
 
And we glorify our species, and we name it “man the wise”,
But our history is bloody, though it’s hidden by our lies –
Horror heaped on horror, through the eons since the flood,
On us humans by us humans, in a world awash in blood…
 
Are we angels, are we devils, are we somewhere in between?
We are surely born of demons, for our actions are obscene.
But in babies as in puppies, and in grasses growing green,
For the eye that knows to see it, there’s the essence soft, serene.
 
There’s the pup that softly whimpers, there’s the little kitten’s mewl.
There’s the girl in class who’s ailing, but who follows still the rule.
There’s the leaf that’s sadly drooping and that soon will die of thirst.
There’s the gentle voice that’s calling, in a world with deafness cursed.
 
Should we go about our business, should we hurry even more?
Should we speed upon the highways, should we shun the byways slow?
There’s that softer voice that’s calling, there’s the silence of the stars.
We can choose to see and listen; we can choose to end the wars.
 
In the stillness of the sunset, in the quiet of the dawn,
In the trusting eyes of children, who were here but now are gone,
We can sense that there’s a heaven, in the midst of all the hells.
For there’s such a thing as healing – and there’s still the love that wells.
  
Forgive the ones who slaughter, forgive the ones who slay.
They know not what they’re doing, as their demons, they obey.
But don’t forget the slaughtered; have them ever in your mind.
As you go about your business, remember to be kind.
 
2014 December 17th, Wed.
Brooklyn, New York
   

Broverbs for Teachers

     
Broverbs for Teachers
 
There’s many a way to say a truth, and many a way to lie,
And all our lives we dance with words, until it’s time to die.
Let kindness reign, not cruelty, in how we speak and act –
For if, within, we've empathy, we've also, in us, tact.

The dogmas and the diktats that are used to tame and rule,
We each should quietly challenge – or be treated like a tool.
If even angels can’t devise a method for all things,
Then should we trust the shysters who pretend that they have wings?

Be wary of the ones who lie – who bully, cheat and worse,
But not of those, whose only sin is truth – in prose or verse.
Be wary of the powerful.  Look not for fame or wealth.
Go humbly, where the peaceful are.  Be mindful of your health.

******

The labor that’s of love may bring rewards of cash or kind.
And if it does, be grateful.  If it doesn’t, do not mind.
Subvert the mills of humankind.  They feed on flesh and soul.
Renew your ties to Nature.  She will help to keep you whole.

******
 
The autumns in these polar lands are times when schools begin.
The summers fade to memories – and soon, we’re sunk in sin.
Resist, resist, with all your might, and yet preserve your strength.
The battles, you may win or lose.  The war is long in length.

When humbled by the overseers, when robbed of strength and sense,
Remember then the humbled ones, and be not over-tense.
The work you do has meaning, though you’re told that it has not.
Go gently to your work at school, and shy away from rot.

Blessed is the one who teaches, teaches from the heart.
Blessed is the one who learns – learning, too, of heart.
For all the universe may spin around and disappear,
But knowledge is a precious thing – that should be without fear.

2014 October 13th, Monday
Brooklyn, New York 
 

Bleakness and Bliss

      
Bleakness and Bliss
  

Doodle-006

    
“Me and my loneliness…” a sister once wrote,
Phrasing her thoughts in the words that I quote.
They struck me, on reading. They stay with me still.
I try, with my verses, that vacuum, to fill…

Gotama the Buddha did methods devise
To merge with the silence, in ways that are wise.
And yet, we are lonely – and emptiness dread.
We try to be busy – until we are dead.

“Me and my loneliness…” a sister had written,
Expressing her mood in a manner unbidden.
She wrote this as prose – but the best of my verse
Is bested, by far, by those syllables terse.
  
******
   
If “Who is this sister?” is a question you ask,
Her privacy, then, with a riddle, I’ll mask.
Rhythm – her name.  In the heart of the atom,
She probes.  (“It’s for knowledge…” said Ava to Adam.)

All of our science and all of our art,
My verses of nuance, resembling a fart,
All in their total are bupkis to this –                               \1
“Me and my loneliness…” – bleakness and bliss...

Today, to the reader, I’m writing again.
But why I am writing, I cannot explain.
You with your loneliness, I with what’s mine…
In the eyes of a puppy, the essence divine…
  
2014 July 16th, Wed.
(last stanza added July 19th)
Brooklyn, New York
  
1.  bupkis:  nothing, worthless – a word, probably of
Yiddish origin, used by New Yorkers and others; also
spelled bupkus, bupkes, bubkes.
   

The Play

  
The Play
  
We come and go like actors on a stage.
We’re born, we grow – and then we swiftly age.
But once we leave, we never do return,
No matter how the actors left may rage.

Is there a script or lines for us to learn?
We train and sport – and then we’re off to earn.
We labor while we can, and then it’s time
For each of us to feed the worms or burn.

We’re born but once – and only once we die,
For that’s the rule no actor dare defy.
And each of us has roles within the play,
But here’s a question – is it all a lie?

And here’s another – who directs the play?
And yet one more – for what and wherefore, pray?
We've asked these things through eons, yet the scenes
And acts proceed – with new ones, every day.

And who, we ask, is sitting in the hall
That’s darkened, as the spot and floodlights all
Are focused on the stage on which we act?
Who cheers or weeps, when actors rise or fall?

Or is there no one – no director and
No audience – for actors, singers, band?
And is the truth or falsity of it
Beyond our wits to sense or understand?

What choice have we, except to play our roles,
With some adrift – and others after goals?
Some state the play is all there is, but some
Proclaim there’s more for our “immortal souls”.

And most of us are truly quite content
To play the minor parts, while others vent
Their sound and fury center-stage – and yet,
For neither will there be a long lament.

And some may say, the answer true is this –
The actors are, because the action is.
So audience and actors are the same,
And it’s for us to duly clap or hiss.

There still remain the who and how and why –
For few there are, who truly can deny
There’s order in the midst of chaos, yet
It’s hard to be content with just a lie.

For only those, who fancy they’re the center,
Can exit with more hubris than they enter.
The stage, they think, is built for this, our race,
And even claim acquaintance with the builder.

But those, who're humbler, try to play their parts,
And work for truth and love, beyond the arts
With which we conjure yet more sophistries,
Until their curtains fall and each departs.

2014  April 21st,  Mon.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn