THREE THINGS ARE CERTAIN, NOT TWO

Three things are certain, not two
To tax and death, add credit card
The old adage is grossly out-of-date
The third is to so many life's financial safeguard.

The Tax Office and the credit-card man
Are too eager to have the first claim
Worried in case you walk too soon to the faraway land
Your obligations discharged---they can't be bothered with your name.

LOVE'S CONUNDRUM

I can't die for love
yet I can't live without it
what a grievous conundrum
the puzzle just doesn't fit

tell me, can you die for love?
if so, with you I would die, gladly
and in this act of our dying together
we will live in a love beyond dying—beyond eternity.

VALENTINE'S DAY

My love she sent me ten roses
only one was fresh, the rest all shrivelled and dead
with a note addressed to 'You cruel and faithless lover'
and ending: ' The fresh rose is for your death-bed'.

I HAVE NO NAME

Whether you know me or not
it matters not whether we have met or chatted
just think of me as that person
without a name--perhaps once you spotted

somewhere and had forgotten
the world has 7.3 billion names and it's fine
if I were not remembered
what's a name though it were mine?

I am a face as everyone else's
(somewhere in the wide universe
that's my home- an address is just a convenience)
unknown, often wondering what life's grand design and purpose

is, humbled by my own frailty
and insignificance of me being an ordinary man
if we should meet someday, somewhere, somehow
just know I have no name, so call me 'human'.

'LOVE IS BLIND'?

'Love is blind'?
what nonsense!
then how come we have
'love at first sight'?
Shakespeare in one sentence
had hoodwinked us since 1616
true, he wrote great drama and poetry
but we must note
he didn't study medicine
nor opthalmology
and mind you
we are living in the 21st century
with all the science and technology
surely it would be the greatest folly
to just quote the bard's cliche blindly

the eyes have it
ask the ophthalmologist

without the eyes
the lover would not see
beauty
and as a corollary
how could you love somebody
if in the first instance
you were blind id est--you couldn't see!

careful, so careful we must all be
to differentiate between reality
and the ranting of silly poetry
if this myth were to perpetuate nilly-*****
mankind would look really silly
that would look good not even to the slightest degree

and one more thing
please bear with me
and this is the bard's secret history

he had chancre--venereal ulcer
for which he received treatment
could he have written 'Love is blind'
being affected by that odious malady?

London's brothels he did visit frequently
when he was away from Stratford-upon-Avon
he drank a lot too--there is ample evidence
he also had anasarca (oh mercy!)
result of mercury-related membranous nephropathy
( we shall not defile him further-
but his alopecia was due to treatment of mercury
for his syphilis---what a medical litany!)

in conclusion
we could somehow see
that England's greatest writer
was not as bright as he had been taken to be.