SUFFERING

RIGHT VIEW

In the Jungle of the World

and the Tangle of the Senses

we build us huts of mud and heartache

and make (and mend) our fragile fences.

‘This is me! That is mine!’

is the burden of our song.

We cannot see, still less define

that pain and sorrow prove us wrong.

This is not mine, this is not me,

is the beginning of our sanity.

Letting go of what does not concern us

leaves that alone which, meddled with, will burn us.

The Law is mirror-like in its precision

and its simplicity needs no revision;

that Good breeds Good

and Evil has its price;

that Virtue is its own reward.

And so is Vice.

That all things pass away,

from butterflies to stars,

and though the World’s a prison
   it’s the Mind that makes the bars.

AS YOU SOW, SO ARE YOU REAPED

        
            DO AS YOU WOULD BE DONE 

                Ethics is the highest science, 
                  concerning itself with survival, 

                  not merely knowall.

                  A man without Ethics,
                  ever thinking
                  never seeing,
                  is already drowning;
                  ever sinking
                  ever lower
                  in his diminishing
                  sea of being.

                 

             New Project: SUFFERING

THE LESS I NAME THE MORE I SEE

Waves crash into each other.

Sharing their salinity, oxygenation, clouded sand

and silver flashing fish.

How can we demarcate them?

             

                                     USAIN BOLT

                                    Usain Bolt ran exactly 100 metres.

                                    To be there before the others.

                                    Josef Klein ran exactly 100 metres.

                                    To catch the bus.

                                    Usain Bolt won

                                    and is engulfed by cameramen

                                    in Beijing.

                                    Josef Klein missed the bus

                                    and is slumped on a bench by a bus stop

                                    in Clapham.

                                    Usain is recognised by everyone world-wide

                                    and lives in luxury everywhere.

                                    Josef is unrecognised by neighbours

                                    in a block of Council Flats in Clapham.

                                    Usain Bolt is an entertainer.

                                    Josef Klein is a retired refuse collector.

                                    Exactly 100 metres is exactly 100 metres.

                                                                           Papa Francis says

                                        He

                                        and

                                        his cohorts of priests

                                        can forgive abortion.

                                        Abortion is a label for killing.

                                        Papa is wrong.

                                        The only killer Papa can forgive

                                        is the man who assassinates

                                        Papa himself.

                                        This is true

                                        for all his cohorts of priests.

                                        Only God can forgive all killing.

                                        If He chooses to.

                                        Es audiendo, Papa?

                                                                       -GNOME 

                                    


NEW PROJECT:  AS WE SOW, SO ARE WE REAPED