As a Man
I am no more able to judge
the contents of my heart
Than I can judge
The distance to a mountain
This is why
After a long trail
I was surprised
how far it was
To meet the crest
It’s also why
At the dusk of that day
The storm looked
So far away
And we chose to stay
The next morning
When I awoke
The snow piled
To the third spoke
But we had hope
Three days later
when we still survived
The drift was up to our eyes
We weren’t gone yet
But the food was
Six days after
Snow still high
Who, but she, would die
Surely I was next
But I had to try
The next day
My food was back
Lying next to me
Cold and still
dead as a nail
Ten days later
they found me
With a hollowed out chest
On that crest
I told them I tried my best
You cannot tell
The contents of a mans heart
So as they dragged me in a cart
They saw crying
But I was planning
On reprising
Apr 2, 2019
Apr 2, 2019 at 8:40 PM UTC
Not a lot of my
Poems are complete
That is because I
Can’t compete
With those who
Think clearly
Or who construe
Words quickly
Nor those that
wage a war
So as to combat
What’s in their core
No I will not
play to win
as I wasn’t taught
To look within
Mar 11, 2019
Mar 11, 2019 at 12:01 PM UTC
My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with ***
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.
So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.
Mar 11, 2019
Mar 11, 2019 at 11:58 AM UTC