Life is not a problem to be solved.

Life.
It’s not a medal on your chest
or the Sunday sudoku.
There is no winning or solving it.
It’s not even a story with
a problem and resolution.

Life is not an occassion
that you need to rise to.

Life is not a riddle to be solved
even a poison with an antidote
or a fountain of youth or gold
to be found somewhere over the rainbow.

No matter what the bookstore
self-help sections say,
no matter how much you need
an answer or to know
why the dice do land
just that way they do,
and, who is throwing them.

Life is not a problem to be solved.

It owes you nothing.
You’re a trifle, a margin error.
A mere wipe across the blackboard of time.

Of life, we know shit.
You, her, him, it
we all know shit.
It’s all in doubt.
I’m not even sure
the fantasy will ever end.
What is real is unreal.
What is unreal is real,
said Maya.

Science knows shit.
Your mother-in-law knows less than shit.
Your heart is dry.
Your lawyer, your accountant,
Tech gurus and even AI,
All know shit.
They are making it up
inventing problems that only
they can solve.

10,000 years from now
we’ll all be laughed at by
dinosaurs with 2 tonne brains
that also don’t know shit.

It’s all pretend and made up.
Glorious science with its
mechanical cuckoo clocks,
righteous religion with its
moral building blocks.

Let the blind lead the blind.
Let those who laugh, laugh.
There is no answer because
no question was ever asked.

You can struggle all you want,
just don’t validate it with the thought
that you just didn’t do things right or well.
There is no magic formula.
The wizard’s hat can be
a dunce hat too.

You can meditate with a million monks.
You can think and think and think
until all the wise owls come home to rest.
You can grow a beard and scream
like a prophet of old.
You can conquer the world and like Nero
fiddle before the moon,
you can “make it”, however you define “it”
but still you won’t ever solve IT,
for life is not a problem to be solved
it isn’t even a problem at all —-
and that indeed if any, is the problem.

Life is not a riddle.
The facts are all there right before you.
There is nothing hidden or mysterious.
Just look.

Life is life.
Not a puzzle or a mountain to be climbed.
Rather, a roller coaster to ride
in terror and triumph,
should you be brave enough
to just sit there and let it
take you where, there
into a future you
can’t ever, every see.

If you liked this, you might enjoy some of my other poetry in this vein. Here’s a starter -

Somedays
you don’t want to get up
and even the light through
the crack in the curtains hurts
and you grind your teeth and
roll back under, into yourself.

Somedays
you don’t want to handle all
the shit life throws at you,
most of all the posturing and
"I’m fine. How are yous?”
most of all the fact that
the big ferris wheel will soon
be stopping and you’ll be
forgotten, an apple
on the ground
unfound.

Somedays.

But most days
it’s brush your teeth
two eggs and toast
a kiss on the cheek and
a world that you greet
with robotic rhythm,
then bed and again,
and you feel it is all fine.

I’m not sure which I prefer?

There seems to be no middle ground
except for the ego, always so proud
full of a voice within
where you begin perfecting the art
of surviving who you are.

I don’t give a flying fruck
if you prefer Jesus or you prefer Allah.
Doesn’t matter to me.

Hey, you can believe it’s a flat earth or
that dinosaurs are still roaming somewhere on Antarctica
Or that America is a statue of liberty.
I don’t care. Carry on.

You can believe in red or blue or pink or white.
Name your delight. That’s fine with me.
We all got our preferences.

So yeah, maybe we won’t
see eye to eye on all things.
That’s ok. All’s kosher.
Maybe you think war will bring peace.
Maybe you believe slappin’ your kids around
makes them stronger and better to succeed.
Yo! I can let all that go.

But where I draw the line,
What we got to agree upon is this;
that our beliefs are a crap shoot —
an all in, at the end of a deep night at the casino of life.
A gamble, a play, a way to get our money back.
However, we absolutely,
don’t know how the cards will land.

I say all this knowing you’re ready
to die on that cross, that bet.

But — if you don’t profess doubts
you might lose your wager, —
then you’re my mortal enemy.

Rage on, in what you absolutely believe.
But just don’t call me
when it doesn’t work out.
’Cuz I won’t be picking up.

Friendship? Brotherhood? Peace?
It requires the idea that we may be wrong.

A Father’s Prayer

Our fathers who aren’t in heaven
Hard-working be thy name;
Thy hands are blistered;
Thy will is administered;
on weekends as it is on weekdays.

Giving us each day food on the table.
And forgiving us kids our lazy ways
as we forgive you and your outbursts.
Leading us not into more debt
but delivering us from it.

For thine home was our kingdom,
of safety and security
for life to carry on.

Ah men!

…………………………………………

Father

From those few drops of sperm
and that two bodied squirm

From that high rise of flesh
and lust that septic worm,

To the slow rot of metamorphosing skin
and the dull burn of past sin

To this erect man, a rising sun
and the sapient vision held within.

Always, always,
chains will bind us in our cells.

Biology has us in her strong hands,
giant test tubes shaking up
the virile mix of this steady universe
as we father,
try to climb above her double helix
into the soft arms of a mother
we know not.

“Never have we been freer than under German occupation.” Jean Paul Satre, The Republic of Silence.

After the war
we all drank ‘til we dropped
and slept long and late
like we’d just
cheated death and
didn’t care much anymore
except that we were here
and we were loved.

After the war
we held our loved ones
long and close
warmed by the smell
of their innocence, the alive
so far we’d been
removed from life.

After the war
the politicians made their speeches
saying never again, never again
and we all nodded our heads
in agreement that war
was the worst thing possible
and we’d do all we could to
add it to the dustbin of history.

After the war
we started believing again
and going to church
and buying life insurance
and picking flowers and dressing up
and singing songs from our heart of hearts.

After the war
we started making money
fixing up our homes and
enjoying the simple things
ball games and beer,
the loving look of our dogs
a drive in the countryside
or the steady sound of rain on tin.

After the war
we began to feel again
and soon returned to
that feeling of war
and being so alive;
and slowly, steadily,
life began to lose its lustre for us
and a certain malaise crept in.

We started to lie and cheat.
We started to believe we needed more.
We started to beat our chests again.
We started to curse and swear
at this group or those people
and we began to feel
out of sorts and
in our heart of hearts
to long again for the time when
we felt so alive, so sure
so filled with life.

We secretly longed for war again.

And so
sometime long after the war
the topic came up and
the drums began to beat
and we didn’t raise our voices
some because – they’d forgot
some because – they wished for it.

The missiles began to fly
and the bugles began to sound
and the body counts rose and rose
and once again
in spite of ourselves,
we longed for
that time again —
after the war.

I have never liked fireworks. Not even firecrackers.
Not even after a few drinks.

Forget how they make my dog cower and shake.
Forget their noise and the huzzah.
Forget the cost of the whole bloody spectacle.

No. I don’t like fireworks because they
make us ignore the beauty, the quiet,
the wonder that is already there.

Fireworks make so many think
beauty is a thing that goes boom!

I never forgave the ignoble Nobel.
And I’ll never forgive the Chinese too
for defacing the universe with their
momentary mascara and immodest mundanity.

We should not just look up above
once every year.

A professor of linguistics walks into class and begins his lecture.

“In English,” he said, “a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.”

A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, right.”

Tautology

That’s the way the cookie crumbles.
How a half-deaf man mumbles.
That’s the way the ball bounces.
How the pretty purring puma pounces.

That’s just the way it is.
How a blind man takes a whiz.

Que sera, sera. -- What will be, will be.
Nothing you get comes free of intentionality.

It is what it is.
Nothing new under the sun.
So be it, my friend.
Life -- a hot oven, cooking another bun.

Them’s the breaks.
You win some, you lose some.
Who told you, everything is roses
Life is just frolicking and fun?

That’s the story of my life.

Same old, same old.
That’s the way life unfolds.
How hot tea always gets cold.

Stuff happens.
It’s the nature of the beast.
It’s a roll of the dice, to say the least.

Roll with the punches.
Keep calm and carry on.
Go with the flow.
You never know? --
What’s around the corner.

Another day, another dollar.
Could be worse, you know.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Shit happens – we discover.

I’m not a minimalist. I really eschew any “ist/ism” - I feel these labels, these aspirations are always hiding stuff in their dark corners.

But I will say - I do believe the world right now is RICH. And it is a travesty, may I say even, an EVIL, that so many struggle and die young and suffer so much. MANY.

You might not agree with me and the poem I wrote today *(yeah it is naked, raw but alive), might be a puzzle for you. One you won’t be able to figure out. But rest assured, there is enough to go around. Supply is not the problem. Nor is demand.

I look around me; my meagre, minor, common, so plain life. Just a man and some loved ones. I look around and see shiny buildings, fast cars, gadgets galore. I look around and see opulence and abundance. And I ask myself, why isn’t this for everyone? Who’s zooming who?

The problem isn’t physical, it is of a moral and spiritual nature. Like all the great crisis facing humankind.

Once we raised our head above the waterline of survival, we just kept going forward trying to erase our fear of “not having enough” . And too, creating a religious outlook, a storyline, a gestalt to rationalize and support it. —- Work hard! Keep what you get close! Possess! More, you deserve it! You need this, you need that or you are just a nobody, a blowhard, dust in the wind. Get, get, get, that will set you free and turn you, the squirrel into a squire. A Peter Pan world of “never enough”.

Ok, I pontificate. I have my bottle of wine (or two or three) a night. I got my few books and the freedom to think, walk free. My wife constantly asks me when I will start working. I say, “I’m always working!”

It’s taken me some time - the last 5 or 6 years I’ve detached myself from the financial poofery and pascal pressure of “not enough”. The choking on dollar bills and the suffrocation of interest rates.

Money, is not the purpose or value of life. I just want others to realize this in their hearts. No grandiose revolutions, just others to experience having enough.
Having enough is all we need - after that, you have the time to find your purpose and let the universe enjoy itself on your behalf.

And what kind of world is one of “having enough”? Well, it means that suffering isn’t a means of profit, as it is today. So many suffer to make so many others have more, have “not enough”. It means a world not of communism, socialism or even capitalism, libertarianism but rather a world where a man is judged by his character and not his possessions and access to wealth (Oh dear MLK, where art thou?). Ok, got to open another bottle of wine. Here is the poem I sang while on my bike today. Then, coming in, sitting down and writing it, manifesting it into permanence. Maybe you’ll be puzzled but that is good …

There’s enough for everybody.

There’s enough food to go ‘round
and keep each of us all fat and rosy cheeked.

There’s enough drink for us all to
get shit faced or just peacefully enjoy.

There’s enough land for all to repose
and feel as kings in comfortable castles and robes.

There’s enough love to melt the
polar ice caps, or set a million ships asail.

There’s enough money for each of us to
wear good shoes and live within our means.

There’s enough music for us all to
dance a jig to the moon ‘n back.

There’s enough knowledge for everyone
to figure out we’re all in this together
for better or worse and
no kind of divorce will ever change that.

There’s enough time to change things.
There’s enough time to round up all the villans
and enough time to forgive them too.

Trust me. I’m not just another diehard romantic.
Don’t believe the devils out there.
The ones that say “beware!” and we’ve got to
pull up our pant strings, sacrifice for tomorrow
keep our heads down and suffer to survive.

Poppycock!

There’s enough of everything - for everybody.

Yet, I’m told the whales have stopped singing.
Trees are weeping silently, the way trees weep.
Bugs no longer offer themselves up to
our shiny clean windshields.

And that should be warning enough
that we need to feel, act, do
- like someone who’s had more than enough.

There is a universe.
And in this universe there is a planet.
And on this planet there is a piece of land.
And on this piece of land is a house.
And in this house there is a man.
And in this man is EVERYTHING.

Kind of the end.

View the original post for this poem - 2021, Matagalpa, Nicaragua.

Get a random post from the 1,000s written since the start 2021, now in the archive.

A mother eagle with her dead babies.

The cries of yesterday drowning in the rain barrel.

Ice cream left melting on the floor.

A clown with no makeup.

Wind against a wall.

A lost umbrella.

A lonely walk that won’t end.

Halfway. Incomplete.

Something. Everything.

No more.

See Bukowski’s The Laughing Heart. A poem of the same vein. See and read all my work related to “LIFE”.

All The Noise In Here

If it were up to me
I’d clean the house
once every 3 months,
bring in some real professionals
to cleanse the joint
from tiles to rooftop
spic n span,
then it’d be peace n quiet
drinking, thinking, writing, being …

but nope
each day here
a cacophony, a symphony of clean
everyone running about
with a rag, wiping down
every piece of shit that doesn’t move
brooms, mops, spray bottles, sanitizer
and out back
the relentless, ceaseless baying
of beaten rugs and wheezing lawn mowers.

Typical.
Descartes knew better.
Just climb into a stove.

We can’t seem to sit alone
in one spot and think
anymore.

If there is nothing much to do,
we’ll find something to clean.

Dishes in the sink—
the endless battle against
dust and entropy.
Hell, even in this recession, depression
people are paying
to get their cars washed.

If it were up to me
I’d legislate for less hygiene.

The world is too busy being clean for me.

Give me some dirty underwear and
I will conquer the world
I bet
Genghis Khan once said.

Ted Gacy across the street
has dug up his backyard
and is holding a coming out party
as soon as the smell lessens.
He’s exhibiting downtown next week.

John Done, the alcoholic
on the cardboard, at the corner
sold his bottle collection
just before the crash
and now sells juicers
on the info-channel.

J.C. Pennyless has
moved to Europe and become
a money changer
after having a miraculous conception
while converting
funds for the church
of some later day saint.

Molly, the prostitute
finally got an agent
and sits at home
knitting, doing needle work
waiting for the call to come.

Mr. Johnston, the phys. ed. teacher
at the school on High street
is sitting outside, right arm raised
prepping for his next lesson
on condom etiquette and control
as a means of keeping the kids
physically active.

Mum and Pop have
franchised
and now walk their lap dog
around and around the park in their
customized, motorized, all weatherized
wheelchairs.

My mother has just won
the Publisher’s Weekly Sweepstakes
and is busy telling me about
her plans to option the house
and make a run on the orange juice market.

Teresa my teenaged daughter
counts the days to business school
convicted, she stumbles through the streets
on 8 inch platforms hoping
her beeper will ring in public.

Mr. Rogers?
He has opened a modelling agency
and is giving speech therapy to
inner city kids on the side.
His new line of clothes comes out next week.

And me?
Like any poet not worth his salt
I’m schleping off all my friends
spending my days picking
between my crusty toes.
I’m buying up all my friend’s
tattered paperbacks and waiting for
all the computers to crash.
Then I’ll have a word or truth to write.

The heart can beat only so fast …………

I wish I could just stop writing poems. Every day I say to myself, “David. You’ve written enough of ‘em. 1,000s, not including the 1,000s you’ve spoken to yourself and never let out of the house — enough is enough, you’ve said what you’ve got to say.”

I have this conversation constantly but still, there is some bugle reveille, some call to arms from within and there I am again at it - trying to do the impossible, turn mud into gold with but a pen/keyboard.

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Today - I was searching and search for a poem to add to a piece I’m writing about “spaces” and the Japanese concept of Ma. Couldn’t find it. Must be in some notebook left in some forlorn part of the world, in a cardboard box, in one of my previous pitstops during this life of wandering.

Oh well. I’ll just write one later today.

But while looking for that poem — I bumped into this aptly named collection of mine - The Ones That Got Away. Poems, 100+ from the last few years that didn’t get into any other poetry collection put together. So, I thought I’d share for readers - maybe something therein might hit you.

The Ones That Got Away 5

23.6MB ∙ PDF file

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The poem below, one my mother liked, is an example of these stray, forsaken poems, lost in time and space - like the one I was searching for … the ones that got away. [All I know is it contained the word “guffaw” and was a kind of chant using “In between”. Oh well. ]

Walmart Roses

I’m not much of a gardener.
In fact, not one at all.

But the other day
coming out of Walmart
I saw these wilting roses
on their last legs
dying in plastic bagged soil.
3 for a buck fifty.

Not like I’m trying 
to save the world and all,
no green thumb and all
but the place could use
some prettying up.

I got home
and got a big fork
from the kitchen
and dug 3 holes 
putting them gently in,
a little pat to finish each off.

Now, 3 days later
they’re tall, strong, fiery red.

It’s amazing how forgiving
the earth is.

Incompleteness

There’s always someone who’s gonna be
stronger, faster, smarter, better hung and
ain’t there no way yur gonna get post-truth
off of that hill, that cross — cuz,
that ain’t the way your soul food gets done.

If you think you’re number 1 at anything
soon enough, someone will come forward
and punch you straight in the face and
let you know, you aren’t getting any award
nor elected queen of the well-made anymore.

It’s all nonsense.

What I mean is
there is no flipping way
you will ever get awaywith loving yourself
because you are the strongest, fastest, smartest
in town or this piss small pond or at your beloved church.

You just won’t.

The only way to love yourself is
warts n all, to take the fall
and see you are the ninny, fart, puss, puke and scrawl
that never had a chance at anything at all.

And your only consolation - possible cancellation?

It’s the same for everybody else
no matter who you or they call
for help, a hand up, a buck or two
just to get through …

We’re all screwed.
Screwed best by you know who.
And if I gotta tell you more …
Keep drinking until a voice says …
— yuwho, yuwho …

Signed - whatawhino.

Every day, 8am before work
he bikes to the town square and
feeds the pigeons whatever’s handy—
a sandwich, stale popcorn, dog food.

They always greet him with
beating wings and a
flhooloohooloohooloo, then
soft coos of appreciation as
they clamor over his torso
in search of a crumb or two to
keep the cold at bay and live another day.

People call him the pigeon guy and
he thinks pigeons get a bad rap,
they aren’t diseased, dumb nor feathered rats –
Darwin and Iron Mike would concur
and he’s never met one nasty or mean
no matter their desperation or despair in
this city of rough sleeping and cold stone.

He knows all their names and sometimes
he’ll give them a quick bike ride
around the water fountain while they
exit on and off in dizzy bird joy.

At 8:15, he jumps back on his bike
and swiftly does the 3 miles to work,
gently brushing off any feathers or
excrement that excitedly was left
by the pigeons, now waiting
patiently by the park benches
for him to come again tomorrow
and be one with them.

“When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul – then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness! We must save ourselves.” Dostoevsky after his mock execution.

You Are On Your Own

Ain’t nobody going to come
to your rescue.

There will be no cavalry
no Colonel Custer,
no charge of any Light Brigade
no Saturday matinee hero
no Superman
nobody’s arms to fall into
no last minute reprieves.

It’s on you to save yourself.
And the bridge ain’t gonna go away.

The key is to believe that
you are worth saving.

That’s not easy, you’ll have to
see that you aren’t like all
the other heartless, monotone
lackluster losers out there.

It will take a bus load of faith
so that you’ll bear it all and arrive
at the understanding needed
to forgive yourself and then see,
you are worth saving.

Don’t wait on anyone else.
Start saving your soul today, now.
You might miss the chance
and fall back into the fantasy
of the knight in shining armor,
the princess giving you a kiss
your Hansel throwing the witch into the oven.

No siree.
Not gonna happen.
There ain’t no Oz Dorothy.
Not even a pill can rescue you.
Just you, yourself and your I.

Believe me, I’ve been there.
I’ve been there waiting and waiting
for salvation, for manna from heaven
for the boss to recognize my talent
for my lottery numbers to hit
for the woman across the bar to
see the true man in me.

It didn’t happen.

So think about doing it yourself.
Loving and saving your own ass.

It’s the only possible rescue plan.
Even Jesus had to carry his own cross.

You’re the princess

that tadpoles dream about,

a nightingale caught

in life

this circus tent,

a flower

full bloom, only lent

to us who spend our days

in search of beds of straw

and you

a gentle tyrant above the law.

That it did nothing for her —
no thing depends upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water.

Yet, she aspired to greatness.

Cracking shells with her dull pen
she looked for the elusive pearl
to string around her slender neck.

She aspired to greatness
with an ungreat full mind.

And I two rows back
struck dumb
by her thick, reaching thighs
and the
vain pounding of her hard head,
tried to overlook her inconsistencies
thinking I might
see eternity in a grain of sand,
that I might
jump down from my high and firy cross.

But I could not,
the farmer in my green soul
knowing
that so much does depend upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water.

That so much does depend upon
empty beauty
full,
filled with in
significance.

Message To A Monk Who Scribbles Verse - Ikkyu

Pain and bliss, love and hate, are like a body and its
shadow:
Cold and warm, joy and anger, you and your condition.
Delight in singing verse is a road to Hell,
but at Hell’s gate—peach blossoms, plum blossoms.

“Tomorrow is not promised”

Today, just a poem. But if you aren’t in the mood for the poem, please just watch the video below. It’s a true story all should take in. IMHO.

We all have our close calls
it is just that some don’t notice them.
We almost die, many times each day
unaware, the gods are at play.

Everything is born to die
it’s just a question of how and when,
as chance does her nimble dance
around our flight and cause.

For some its sudden end,
a game of peekaboo;
now you’re here
now you’re not—
for others it’s a long slide
into the dark waters of rot.

Life is a crap shoot.
Sure, you can take care of yourself;
just a glass of wine each night
daily exercise, low cal this
and high-energy that
but alas, there are microbes
and falling pianos one
can’t avoid.

Physics tells us of
a quantum calculator where
particles come and go
disappear and reappear
to bounce off each other
in random ways to
make us think the game
ain’t rigged.

But it is.
We’ll never win.
We’ll never exit by way
of the cashier’s window.

When it is your time
it is your time.
Ain’t nothing you can do,
chance and necessity
smirk and rule—
while we beggars of time
plead our case, like a fool.

The Gravedigger

he starts work at 3:30 a.m. every day

with his thermos and ham and cheese sandwiches

and there’s his bluetooth headphones

which he recharges every evening before work.

he digs for hours with a small sharp shovel

out of sight, his breath hanging, visible in the air.

he’s 57 years old and the days are numbered for him.

he regrets never learning how to operate a backhoe

but agrees its better - the dead should bury the dead.

he gets paid by “the hole” and works diligently

to make his quota, stopping only to bail water

and occassionally wipe his brow.

sometime when dawn is breaking

he drinks the coke he brought.

at 8 a.m. he dusts himself off and

walks towards home

across the ravine, behind the cemetary

where he cooks up a breakfast, eggs and peameal

then goes to the bedroom and throws off his clothes

as his wife wakes up and picks them up

tossing them into the laundry hamper.

he leans to his left

and waits for sleep to arrive.

If you liked this, you might enjoy - Modern Hygiene.