Heaven and Hell
are but regions of the heart
with disputed borders
Friday haiku 29: a senryu
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Heaven and Hell
are but regions of the heart
with disputed borders
Tag Archives: meaning
Oil, water
I’m oil, life is water.
I’m a stain on the tarmac,
a slick spot to catch fate unawares.
I’m not the doer, but the done;
not the message, but the voice,
modulated by frequency or amplitude,
not so much indifferent
as bemused, not unaware
but naked in a world of secrets.
Sky and water
Water and sky indecisive,
light flitting around corners,
thunder mumbling curses,
a low energy kind of day
I recall a day exactly
like this, so long ago,
when we walked between the drops
to the 10th Street Pool Hall
to lay our fortunes down
on the Steepleton tables,
greener than any pasture,
leather pockets yawning.
Entire lives were spent
and measured in racks of nine;
I still hear the clack
between the thunder claps.
In the end, we walked out the door
pockets empty, hearts full,
into the long shadows
of the waiting sullen universe.
The plague
Survivors of the plague, finding themselves neither destroyed nor improved, could discover no divine purpose in the pain they had suffered. ~ Barbara Tuchman
Everything falls, the old banners
Flung to pieces,
God reveals himself a jester,
Indifferent or cruel,
It makes little difference.
Popes and paupers rot
In the same slag heap,
All the rules, shattered.
Such a holy tantrum!
Such abandonment
Not seen since the days
Of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Do you pray, beseeching
God for pity,
If justice cannot be found?
Take care you don’t disturb his temper!
No pretense any longer
Of value, of one thing
Over another, your doom
Is made by a foul divine whim.
If I fail to contradict myself
If I fail to contradict myself,
It’s because I’m small,
My multitudes have fled
For better quarters
Among the heebie-jeebies,
The great Coalition of the Willful,
Squabbling interminably
For the sheer joy of it.
These days it’s not enough
To be inconsistent, but it must
Be done with a vengeance,
With a truculence matched only
By contempt for all
That is reconcilable.
I’ve heard it said that
We are but shadows
Of some inescapable ambiguity,
And to pretend otherwise
Is pathetic.
So say the shadows.
exiles child 