Recent Poetry, May 2026

Septuagint

If we could see things as they be,
No me, no you, no soup, no traction,
The truth is nonduality,
And love’s the only right reaction.

There’d be no further need for war,
Or any argument, bad  hist’ries,
For there’s no diff (we’d know the score),
‘Tween me and you and other mysteries.

Jesus, he just saw the truth,
Of our existence. Not uncouth.
He screamed as loud as people can,
To call him only Son of Man.

He was not Yahweh, who with a smile,
Tried being human for a while.
Who later died and then arose,
To save us from our sins, yeah those.

A new religion was not his aim,
But he had no choice, ‘twas just the same,
So, standing there, he taught it true,
That there’s no diff ‘tween me and you,

And God, that fig tree, or a cat,
And love’s our best response to that.
Then seventy fine men of clout,
Declared the Canon, which books were in, and which were out,

They knew the four gospels didn’t align,
And that was just a simple sign,
That this resurrection, very critically,
Should not be taken all that literally.

From Alexandria, they declared,
The Gospel canon, then  and there.
They’re not so wise, geniuses, or sages,
They wink at us across the ages.

Conquering Death

I don’t believe in death or birth,
(Or mustard greens, for all that’s worth).
They’re unbelievable at best,
And they’re so wonderfully far-fetched.

Christ conquered death, to say that’s fair,
As we, on Pascha night, declare,
But what if he had said, when dying:
“Brothers, sisters, loves, I’m lying.”

“I didn’t make death go away,
“Just look around you at its sway,
“O’er all of us.  I did remind,
“That death’s unchanged (And, please, be kind).”

“Moses, Elijah, they both knew,
“They came with me to Tabor too,
“To show that if we’re really here,
“There is no death and naught to fear.”

It’s not that death has crashed and burned,
But our relationship with it turned.
Not to enlightenment or confusion, do we refer,
It’s just that neither of them do we prefer.

And so that’s true of death from hence,
We prefer enlightenment that makes sense.
No preference means there’s nought to fear,
And we’ll go on another year.


The Way Things Are

There is insight all around
Sometimes we see it.  It’s profound.
Language, it cannot express it,
But we make a mistake, God bless it.
We want that true perception back,
As though without it there’d  be lack.
When we chase after it, we err.
Though not perceived, it’s always there.


Sigfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

You were ahead of,
Your time, as they say,
A poet with no other choice,
Than speaking the truth,
As so few do, it turns out.
One couldn’t talk of pacifism
Or homosexuality until you were,
Quite old. But you had to.
It turns out that Love made you do it.
And with your life,
You showed us
How it’s done.
Thanks.

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)

When it turned out,
That Communism was,
The source of much suffering,
There was no choice,
But to bear witness to it
Through your poetry.
With lightning speed,
You went from dilettante to martyr.