For A Life After Testosterone

Many men are in love with their senses,
women too, particularly when engaged
in a heightened sense of mutual sensuality.
Who would deny another a shared high?
But the taste of well prepared food
shared with a companion is what settles me.
And even more powerful is a heart
that is feels light, from an easy burden.
 

The False Self

that brings us popularity
gives us a false popularity.

The Frustrations Of A Historian

The real question being 'which of the two
 has the most patience to live with the repetition'?

Robert Frost Was Wrong

-home is not home because 'when you go there
they have to accept you, they have to take you in'.
Too many folks outgrow where they once
were obliged to live, and can't shrink themselves
back into those old spaces for that to be true.
For many a front door they can rent
to keep the world at bay would be the best
but in the absence of that, a quiet hostel
with thick walls between rooms would fine
-for a while at least. Somewhere to go
where they can leave unstained by any judgement
pressed into their character by the owner.
Where as for many in this 'home owning 'democracy''
home is where the damnation starts, and it continues ever after.

Modern Therapy

Domestic Heresies (3)

In popular culture parents love their offspring
-'unconditionally' so the cliche runs.
When the young are cute, easily bent
into submission, they are easy to praise.
The narcissism behind sentiment seems safe.
But when children reason they see
how promise and reality keep separate company.
Then, more than ever, parents
want theirs to only anger in the house
to keep the peace, the better for the children
to sustain the illusion that the parents
have not marked down the children's future,
any more than their own hopes were squashed.

Meanwhile shared affection strains
in mutuality-each family member strives
to agree with what they deeply dislike.
This gets characterized, piously,
as something between familial self sacrifice
and a stale repetitive co-dependency.
At worst it is an unending grudge match
between zombies who don't know how to die.

Can I Ask For Less Of Myself?

I assume I know myself well enough
to know my needs from my wants,
a roof over my head against the weather,
a bed, and food for each day
and (since I am so limited in myself)
some quiet and very limited company-
the furry four legged sort is the best.
It all adds up to 'my daily bread'.
I also know that out there,
somewhere well beyond my head
-and outside of my reckoning-
there are vast systems updated hourly
to keep me afloat in creature luxuries
that I did not realize I deserved.
It is best for me to keep a distance
from these systems the better to not be
overwhelmed by choice. But what to do?
When even after all the above I am ill-at-ease,
restless even, in the sef-defined self by which I define 'need'?
Would I be more settled with less? Maybe I had better say 'please'...