Howcome I can’t tell you
in simple, direct words
the meaning of everything
without you staring blankfaced
or rolling your eyes?
____________________
The meaning of your life is this:
find meaning & live it. That’s it.
Prance a little before you corpse.
Life is sentience & sensation.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
____________________
As to everything else
cosmos & the void—
we don’t know enough yet
to ask the right questions.
But note: we keep probing.
____________________
In the meantime
indulge in the ecstasies of art
good food, drink
a friend, mentor or lover who is fully present
the steadying, stalwart companionship
of dogs.
____________________
Honestly
what more could you want?
Thanks, Carl!
I don’t know enough to praise poetry properly, but I genuinely enjoy the thoughts and images this free-verse poem brings to mind. It’s fresh air.
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Thank you, GD! The challenge I set for myself here was to convey, in the simplest and most direct language, no-BS answers to those nagging existential questions that haunt thinking men and women all their lives: Why am I here? What’s it all about, Alfie? How shall I live my life? You’ve found the perfect piece of art to complement the poem. Much obliged! PS. I cannot reproduce a double-line break in WordPress, for some reason. A 20-increment long-dash conveys the idea, breaking up the poem into the discrete chunks I’d originally intended.
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The lines of dashes are better than double line breaks anyway.
I U do ever really want to add a little blank vertical space between things, U can clk on [Code Editor] and put something like [ <div style=”height:1.4em”></div> ] directly into the HTML code. Tweak the number em units as needed.
The stuff inside [ … ] above should appear as plain uninterpreted HTML code, but WP can be tricky in how it processes comment text. And I may have missed a typo in the contortions that make code appear as literal text, rather than as something to interpret.
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OOPS! “I U” should be “If U” and “number em units” should be “number of em Units” (but the HTML code came out OK). Would have been more readable to put the code on a line by itself:
<div style=”height:1.4em”></div>
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Whatever happened to hitting the ENTER key twice? Heh! Seriously, though: Thanks for the HTML coding tips.
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That bit about dogs is spot on.
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I thought so, too!
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If words convey meaning, your words are very meaningful Thank you!
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I am glad the poem resonated with you. It resonated with me; demanded to be written. It’s taken near six decades of experience and practice to learn to write simply and directly about “the important stuff”. (What’s that quote of Vonnegut’s? Rough paraphrase: “I am getting older; running out of time. Losing patience with art and artifice. I’m afraid I’ve become unapologetically didactic: Nowadays I just come right out and say what I mean.”)
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In truth, your reminder is very grounding.
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I shall indulge in the ecstacies of art. No pretense, no BS.
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Go for it, Liz!
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I bopped in and out of here all yesterday, trying to think of what to say that wasn’t a downer.
It just came to me.
When you’re in pain (I am, most of the time–my arthritis is worse and worse), it helps to look at raccoons, possums, skunks, and bats eating bananas. Thank you Facebook.
Also good: two rats named Bean and Donut pushing a rat-size shopping cart.
There you have it, my current reality in a nutshell.
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Sorry to hear you’re in pain, Mimi. I trust you’re under a doctor’s care?
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Yes, but what do you do for arthritis? Take pain pills, that help somewhat.
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I’m no expert, but aren’t there “joint/cartilage lubricating” pills that may help? Or are these over-the-counter remedies ineffective?
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‘Prance a little before you corpse.’ Says it all, Carl. Thank you.
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It does, doesn’t it.
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