Good Friends Challenge the Mountain

When we are old men,
There won’t be much left to say;
We will look back upon
These hours of painstaking
Application of verbal bandages,
These precise dissections
Of our ego-shaped tumours,
Examined under the revealing lens
Of brandy or rye- and we will say
That we performed admirably,
Given the circumstances.

Wisdom being
The charity of age, when the light
Is dimming on two comrades
They cannot but embrace the silence,
Which far from empty is filled
With knowledge which requires
No volume, no exertion.
I look forward to that day
As much as I do another night
Spent in brotherhood,
In the storm of being fallible,
At the mast of unknown future.

Talk of Transcendence

I adore her but don’t share
Her belief in reincarnation,
Yet I indulged her, over coffee,
In speculation of the lives we’ve lived.
I said I was a prospector
In the roaring 20’s and she
Was a foul-mouthed, alcoholic flapper,
And we drank ourselves from rich to poor
To a mirthful double suicide.
She said I was the captain
Of a Japanese whaler and she was a whore
Down in San Francisco, with great calves
From walking all those hilly streets
And we were mad for each other,
Married in a week, and dead very young
In the earthquake of 1906.
When she suggested we had
Found each other again I said
I hope we find each other again
In every life, and I promise I will look for you
If you promise you will look for me,
So she said if I can’t find you
I will be the lightning bolts you see,
Calling your name out,
And I swore I’d be in the music
She heard wherever she may be.
If nothing else, nothing else at all
We will always strike and sing
Our immortal names
Until our paths cross again.

Judge Not

It would be dreadfully short-sighted
To suggest that he changes to suit
A new acquaintance, a different group
He is neither false nor makes pretense;
Simply,
By that virtue we call intellect
That he has drunk exotic honeys
From so many cups of knowledge
That he may articulate upon
Anything,
If only for a quick shake, and yet
With eloquence he can reach out and
Place upon two ears a different lens –
That he may blend, having altered not
At all.