No Question

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A human life’s too short to comprehend
the purpose of existence. What we see
is just a slice of time and space. The end
defies our wisdom like infinity.
We needn’t solve the question to survive
to reproduce our traits through progeny;
by hit or miss, we found some ways to thrive
without enlightenment, in entropy.

So if a few have glimpsed a wider view,
and sensed dimensions strung beyond our own,
the vision didn’t prosper them – it’s true
perhaps, but useless. It may stay unknown
for all it’s worth – to further no one’s aim,
except an oddball digging through God’s game.

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DMV

dmv

I don’t possess a car. I seldom drive,
but I renewed my license even though
I’ve no intent to use it – I survive
enjoying walking mostly where I go.
But DMV said all they’d need to see
is how I look and read, and they’d renew
my license for five years for one small fee,
if I showed up at 10. I opted to.

I left my place in time to amble there
(our sadly rainless skies invited me) –
then waited till I thought I couldn’t bear
the lines to get a number, picture, see
how well I see. They said I’d need a test,
but I pushed back against the bureau’s best.

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Hard of Hearing

language

“What do you want from life?” she asked. He said
“To live with you, smoke ganja every day,
and dance in sunlight naked.” But instead
of simple listening, she found a way
to make his words motif and metaphor
that scattered in the wind her passion blew.
Demanding his regard let her ignore
his need for hers, and self-attention grew.

He said, “I worry that you’ll figure out
I’m such a duck,” perplexing her at first.
His actions superseded every doubt,
and soon his words were prophecy. Each nursed
a mounting need that overrode the heart
and ears, and hearing not they came apart.

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Presence

language

I held my sense in fairly high esteem
when I was 21. I thought I knew
myself and him, for I distinguished seem
from is and ought. If anything, I grew
indignant when I felt I wasn’t heard.
I needed to be present, I complained,
and if my lover thought such talk absurd,
he kept that to himself. We waxed. We waned.

And though I felt some pride, like I perceived
the patterns soft-projected as we danced,
I wish I’d paid attention and believed
the way he self-described. Whatever chance
we had was lost when neither opened mind
like arms. We deafly left our best behind.

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The Interrupters

gray

My fingertips feel odd sometimes. They’re cold
I note they weren’t so before, or numb
when I sleep cheek-compressed – the way I hold
them tightly there – or weakened in the thumb.
My hands have lost all fat, and now I bruise
if I so much as graze the wood or bricks
of home. Surprised we weren’t given clues,
I’m cataloguing some of age’s tricks.

We’re reading, learning, thinking less, and yet
my peers are readier to interrupt.
They don’t have long to utter – they’ll forget
they know and so they’re growing more abrupt.
I don’t know if it’s hearing loss or strokes,
but lately I’m preferring younger folks.

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At Play

Solitaire

Incessant runs of solitaire I’ve played
for pleasure and unburdening my mind.
When I was young, I shuffled cards and made
a pattern on my table – I’d unwind
as colors intermeshed, and I would deal
the game repeatedly. Computers took
those jobs, but solitaire remained as real
for me as reading screen instead of book.

And maybe it’s just age and frequency,
but twice I’ve lost my bearings in a game.
I blanked on where I happened then to be,
what time it was: I sensed no shade or frame.
A moment passed and I resumed. But which
was that: a mini-stroke or flitting glitch?

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Tropes

language

My brother moved his office from SF
to Oakland – he reiterates the claim
that he appreciates the jewel he left
more now. But I know him – his words are lame.
My sister says she’s into family
because she moved away when she was young,
but she’s the one who’s tightest to our tree –
she issues adages with forking tongue.

Their statements are too empty for my ears.
Their declarations don’t shed any light
in passages we navigate these years;
they don’t illuminate encroaching night.
I’m spending time with youngsters now, in hopes
I’ll get to listen less to mindless tropes.

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Personal Hygiene

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I’m in the bathtub every Thursday eve.
The water’s always hotter than I meant,
so I don’t soak as much as sweat, and leave
the bath with scant a quarter hour spent.
The first of every month I wash my sheets
(it’s difficult to make my nookish bed).
I relish how the freshly-laundered greets
my skin a little stiff, my neck and head.

I’m not unclean – my cottage has no tub,
but once a week I’m able to immerse.
I sleep alone and seldom sweat – to rub
my linens tires them too rapidly. I nurse
myself with showers, hotter than advised.
My place is small, my habits improvised.

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Hands

Left hand

At 16 years I knew a girl whose hands
were soft and still at rest. She seemed serene,
and she became the image I command
when I attempt to wipe my worry clean.
A year ago I started spending days
with baby Sam, whose growing antics fill
my heart, but it’s his resting hands that slay
me daily: tapered fingers, dimpled, still.

My mother ever fidgeted. She found
a thousand jobs to do and picked
her hands incessantly. She harped and frowned
when I sat still like I had some defect.
I lace my hands at rest now, palm to palm
with space between, and feel my edges calm.

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Tutorial

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I used to learn from Dad and friends and books –
instructors taught me lessons now and then –
but Dad misplaced his mind, and grown it looks
like friends have given up and don’t intend
to add to knowledge. Teachers as a rule
are mediocre or too hard to find.
I’m never ready to return to school,
and yet I harbor stamina in mind.

I chewed the best of books long years ago.
I gleaned the written wisdom of my age.
I got a lot, but of what I don’t know,
I doubt the answer’s found on any page.
Of late my mate’s a toddler, and I see
and sense with him the world’s immensity.

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