When you find him,
remember
the nights you wondered,
the days you hoped and
were disappointed,
the evenings you argued with
the disbelieving.
When you find him,
watch the muscular flowers
take from the daylight,
the branches
bend low to your touch.
When you find him,
Breathe deeply,
As a victor breathes:
believing and unconcerned,
accepting the gentle tingle
of proven instinct,
satisfied impulse.
When he finds you,
Tell him I told you so.
[for Emma Shield]
Not like the Mother of Exiles,
Lifting her lamp beside the golden door;
Here at his walled-off, insular gate stands
A converted Walmart, whose wretched refuse
Is the vivisected child, and its name:
De facto criminal. From his braggart maw
Glowers world-wide warning; his white-rimmed eyes command
The windswept border that malicious ignorance surveils.
“Save, needy lands, your free breath!” growls he
Through spray-tanned lips: “Keep your pained parents, your raping hordes,
Your huddled hostages yearning to serve (not infest),
The suffering subjects of our wealthy stores,
Keep these, your tortured, tested, terrible tenants,
Or I’ll keep your children in my dungeon holds.”
No
doubt
about
it:
there
is
hubris
in
humility
and
grandiosity
in
my
generosity.
“Most
of
what
they
call
humility
is
successfully
disguised
arrogance.”
~Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procustes.
“Procrastination
is
the
soul
rebelling
against
entrapment.”
~Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procustes.
Another year. Loving still.
Do not look for me in the curve
or colour of the rainbow,
or in the pleasing shape
of a passing cloud.
Though I loved them,
I am still not in the small
petal of the lilac, or
the sweet spring scent of
the lily of the valley.
And you will not
find me anywhere
near the chiseled dates
and letters on those
gleaming plaques.
Do not worry.
When you need me,
you will find no search
is necessary.
I am already behind your eyes
and closer than your own skin.
Cry for us both now,
if you need to,
but know that,
still and always,
I will find you when
you’ve fallen
and help you again to stand.
“He has what he claims
is a good track record.
All I can infer is that he
has learned to buy and sell.
And it is harder to
fry an egg than buy and sell.”
~Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled By Randomness: The Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets.
“These must be, not chivalry, but poetry….these do not deserve to be burned like the others, for they neither do nor can do the mischief the books of chivalry have done, being books of entertainment that can hurt no one.”
~Don Quixote.
Feel
better
or
say
you
do.
Either
way,
your
brain
remains
the
same.
“My theme is alwey oon, and evere was—Radix malorum est Cupiditas.”
~The Pardoner’s Tale.
And we together, wrought
by a thunderbolt of azure
eyes and snow white boots;
tales taught by a pompous
ass; and a love as giving as
a striking moon.
And I, hypocrite, solely
taking at every promise
to give only, proferring
failure to each eager hope,
loving desperately in
atonement for every
poisoned bottle and stab
at Death.
After three times a decade
in receipt of more than
just desert; still guarding
rotten relics like a cankered
banker; grasping like an aged
beggar for another day,
another hour in your company;
and never bearing to think
it profligate to assume.
Beloved, you are my full
compass. My sustenance,
my respite, and my cure.
The branch to my root,
the vein to my pooling blood,
the opening to my every door.
And greed–if my resilient,
teeming yen for you be such–
must coat my every evil organ
like the finest mist.
[for Julie]
