Recent Poetry, January 2026

Origen (circa 185-circa 253)

When Egypt was a very Christian place,

Before Islam had showed its pretty face,

Of Alexandria, you were the wondrous sage,

And they all loved you in that early age.

The first book called The Philokalia,

Anthologized you. No et alia.

The Cappadocians, all did much like you,

You were a great foundation for them too.

But you became the heretical kind,

Because of your superior sort of mind,

You saw that “God” was ever just the same,

Eternal. Whate’r “his” bleepin’  name.

Eternally “he” was the Creator too,

Logically, then, both me and also you,

And all creation was eternal too.

Becoming Godlike, falling, then, away

In an eternal cycle, you would say.

Thus you became a heretic, immense,

Although you made an awful lot of sense.

Good News

Life is suffering, as they say,

The pain it never goes away.

Nor are any of us free,

As humans it’s our destiny.

Suffering is just like breath,

It’s natural too until our death.

But when nonduality’s understood,

So’s compassion. That is good.

Revelation on Coming Home

When I come back from my Tai Chi

I take a path with many a tree.

They do their autumn color duty,

In silent witness to the beauty,

Of the earth.  Or we would miss it.

If we perceived it all we’d kiss it.

Our Purpose 

We’re here to learn to love a bit,

That’s all we do, but we forgit.

It’s not that we don’t get a job,

Or Ph.D. or be a slob,

Or be a mom or laundress, durnit.

It’s just that into love we turn it.

Women

They were baby machines for men, no big mystery,

For most of all our blessed human history.

Offspring were sex’s first and main result

There was no other way of thinking felt.

And marriages of women highly born,

Were firstly diplomatic. ‘Twas the norm.

Love was not the point, nor intimacy 

But the children’s blest legitimacy.

The revolution of our age right now,

Is sex removed from childbearing, and how.

Now for the first time women can make sense,

Or can be brilliant (or even really dense).

It hasn’t really taken yet

It’s still brand new, though we forget.

And there are further implications too,

For all us members of the human zoo.

Dharma

The glorious tree right over there,

Is all the teaching that we need.

Wisdom’s truly everywhere,

If we can train ourselves to heed.

‘Cause then the teaching’s omnipresent,

In Cream of Wheat and Kankakee,

In lentil soup, a ring-necked pheasant,

And still within that lovely tree.

Indestructible 

The bad guys tend to always win,

It seems unfair, but there you go.

But the imperfect world we’re in,

Does  not do “fair” much.  Don’t you know?

But there’s some good news, even so,

Those who aspire to good are few,

But their acts are eternal, even though,

The bad guy’s aren’t. And that is true.