Hope

would be imagining, for lack of proof,
that I have an agreeable afterlife.
Despair would that in that time-outside-time
I would become a candidate for canonization.
I could not cope the debate that is part of being chosen.
The only cause for whom I would want be
a sign of hope, or a patron saint,
would have to be for the perpetually unemployable.

Comfort Eating

When cannibals prepare the dead
for consumption I wonder-
what is the emotive effect of their preparations?
It seems to me that boiled down the responses
reduce to two kinds of comfort; affirmation
of the kinship of your own community
or vengeance upon some enemy tribe.
Though straightening times like siege, war
and famine will equally inspire sufficient
desperation in our appetites to turn
us into what we fear on Halloween Night.

Heads/Tails

Self control is a dog wagging it's tail for joy,
in waiting in clear sight for the cause of it happiness.
Lack of self control is the tail manically wagging it's owner,
as they chase each other in a circle, tormented. No end-point in sight.

Cheese, Saints And Scholars

Early in his presidency Charles de Gaulle asked,
'How do you govern a country which has 246
varieties of cheese?' to reflect his wonder
at the diversity of France. Would that the English
could have had a similar reflective lightness
with their historic deforestation  and their creation
of settlements in the land of 179 saints and scholars.
I trust the saints scarred the invaders with nightmares.

The Diary Everyone Wants, Really....

I have mine and already there are confirmed
 dates on which I am to be disappointed.

Initiative

is a word that people use
to describe the actions of others
when an action praises them,
without them asking for the flattery.
Nothing wrong with that.
But when the flattered take so well
to being surprised by praise,
that they think to themselves
that the sea bed is their universe,
the world is their oyster
and they are the object of tribute,
to be polished by praise
then others, plain as they are,
will disappoint them in the end.
Even as it seems too late
we have to be our own grit,
and resist the tidal shift
of ungraciously consuming
other people without their consent.

Affirmative Reflections

It seems strange to me how I have grown as person
 for having a buddy to reflect and who reflects me...