Wealth In Want

Even the poor in our society
have six times more than it's sane to desire 

And the rich everywhere are always wanting
something for nothing, as if they deserve it.

When wanting less means less want,
how to make sure of our sense of sanity? 

This Is Not My New Year Resolution

But it it will happen to me one day,
in the meanwhile I can live and wait.

 

An Ordinary Afterlife

Hope comes to me,
from the belief that when I am long gone, 
there will be more of life to come after me
than there was when I was there to share in it.  

New Year Aims

To simplify what I have,
who I know, and what I know them for,
so that the next time the next word
or idea won't come to me in conversation
I can reassure myself that I am missing less.
Because time shrinks all things, anyway.

My First New Year Card

                  

Bonne année, Frohes Neues Jahr, Gelukkig nieuwjaar, Buon Anno, Feliz año nuevo, Gezuar vitin e ri, Kαλή χρονιά, Cреќна нова година.

 

The Unbelievable Life

In the 1970s, as I reached toward
what 'being a grown up' appeared to be,
and as my hopes of mature choice
kept retreating from me, one phrase 
that I found to convey how I felt
repeated itself ad nauseam,
and took on a life of it's own.

I wrote about 'having mixed feelings',
to spare the shame of my family.
until I almost believed it.

Adding the word 'mixed' to 'feelings'
meant to me that what I felt was complex,
and explainable. 'Mixed' gave me a pivot
away from how impossible it was
to explain to myself, then family and friends
that surrounded me who always denied
that anyone's life could be that awful. 

Decades later, through several therapists, 
I found the words it was previously
impossible to spit out, and they cleansed me.
The unbelievable life became not only credible
but disposable as well, with sympathetic company. 

Picture Set Of The Month - January 2026 - The Astronomical Drawings Of Étienne Trouvelot

Étienne Trouvelot (1827 – 1895) was a French
painter, astronomer and entomologist.

In his youth he lived in France, as an adult,
for political reasons, he lived in America.  

These water colour paintings are now remembered
as the peak of his creative life. 

 

The precision of them speaks of many hours
at the telescope, and slow resolve of memory
to recall the images seen afterward.

There are 14 of these images in total.
Please left click here for an image
 of the man himself and a link to all the images.