Mental Fatigue

Without question, it is reasonable
to assume that a tool integral to
one's profession, even one's very
being can be overworked. We speak
here of a tool of unreservedly cunning
design, one built on an armature
of equal architectural brilliance
meant as a structure whose purpose
is to contain and carry that vital
tool. All tools can be abused of
course through overwork in the
reliance on its integrity and capacity
to perform. Built into this tool, however
is capacity, strength and endurance
yet use it to excess and the risk
rises that it may become enfeebled
and fail spectacularly. So much so
that the structure flawlessly designed
to hold and convey that tool suffers
the indignity of failure; the entire
edifice fading, its resourcefulness and
competence no longer reliable and
doomed to extinction. A riddle this is
not; simply a tale of longevity and
survival of the brain housed within
the cranium held aloft by the exquisitely
designed and complex mass corpus.

Unanswerable

If it is true that our every thought
represents an electrical impulse
that is carried through the atmosphere
forevermore, do those thoughts echo
somewhere, where others pick them
up, decipher their meaning, know
inherent to their interpretation who
we are, what we represent, why we exist
because they too somewhere, anywhere
reflect the introspection that gives
birth to such thoughts? If, as some
suggest, we inhabit just one plane but
that alongside the one we exist within
there are alternate worlds and other
realities, not just our own; invisible and
silent to us, but there -- so where are
they? Is that other world one of
insubstantial ectoplasm, where ghostlike
creatures waft here and there with the
wind, assuming atmospheric conditions
impact there as they do here? Are they
aware of us, do they care that we exist?
Is complex, mysterious science that we
name nature far more adventurous in
creation than we can give credit for?


 

My Self

I am many where
I would be one
fearing forced explication
or the face
turned away from mine
so I become malleable
as clay
responding to others' biases
tamping down
my inside self
forcing up those double images
parroting words
to evoke pleasant acceptance
prevent awkwardness
yet disliking this stranger
making her uncomfortable
sojourn
nestling among my
sinews my bones
where that one and that one
is all things
to all men
and that too-quiet
lonely voice calls out
yet unheard
hear me!
let me out ...
               I cannot.

Explicating Dentistry

Surely there must be certain indispensable
traits associated with people who aspire
to the art and profession of dentistry?
One must, of course, be self-assured
controlled and deft, patient and skillful
in persuading perfect strangers that it is
perfectly logical that they invade, as it were
your mouth, that orifice into which you
permit only that which sustains your life
and the edifice within which your soul is
enshrined. Possibly, even probably, that
person whose profession reaps generous
financial security has inherited a genetic
streak of malicious sadism, conveniently
rendered antiseptic by the very profession
being practised. And we unskilled and
submitting to the pantomime of dentistry
unable to utter a word as the skilled
hands move within, deploying tools
extracting them, injecting materials while
the unfortunate patient is in pain, incapable
of uttering more than a sigh, exhibiting
expressions of discomfort, studiously 
unnoticed by the excruciatingly busy
impressively muscular hands performing
their nimble acrobatics -- and the thought
suddenly occurs; those who submit reflect
a symbiosis; maladroit masochists all!

dentist

Life As A Game-Changer

When those brilliant minds diligently
experimented, their research succeeding
in altering life by producing another 
dimension entirely in time and space and
place, it took but a blink of time for social
media to emerge from the Internet, a brave
epoch and promise to all who engage that they can
indeed live life as they most desire, leaving
the pedestrian behind, re-inventing themselves
to their hearts' desire. That old adage that
you live only once, that this one life is no
rehearsal for an after-life of a more permanent
celebration may now be left in the dust of 
unclaimed reality, shifting into the realm
of that other dimension where a prime
minister besotted with himself is hostage
to selfies and a similarly addicted president
omnipotent issues proclamations via Twitter
all posted to social media, to live on forevermore.
Mere mortals no more of no account, for all
who despair over what nature has endowed
us with now have the freedom to remake
ourselves to reflect our favoured reality. We
have become instant sensations toward
whom followers flock in an uplifting display
of admiration demanding only a follow-back
in this mutual agreement that the old
realities really failed our needs as we
have gained the confidence to become
what we are not in this living dimension.

Mawkish Nature

It was clear that his disciplined mind
took its presence as a personal rebuke
as though nature itself regarded his 
carelessness as an assault upon her own
natural disorder where generations of
woodland detritus lay upon the forest
floor in a constant feverish state of
decomposition in preparation for
welcoming new generations, nursed
upon that rich humus within which lay
though biodegradable, the insult of a
human touch. Whether discarded in a
deliberate display of irreverence to the
natural surroundings or simply lost by
some poor soul battling asthma refusing
to surrender the pleasure of natural
environs to nurse an allergy, the paper
tissue lay there, partially desiccated 
thanks to wind and rain and time 
coalescing to reclaim this bit of 
processed cellulose. Yet to him signifying
the arrogance of human nature defiling
the nature that spawned humans. He
bends, deftly twists two twigs into a
pincer, lifts the offending white flag
not for him surrender to mocking nature.

The Gardener's Conceit

Infinitely less fastidious than the
gardeners who take such pains to
insert tender new plants into the moist
spring soil, the mature garden strikes
its own autonomous order of harmony
in the disorder of its eventual presentation
in the depths of summer, mature and
proudly preening. The sensible
gardener recognizes how futile it is
to impose her own aesthetic on an
ancient and well-practised design
where independence and the struggle
to survive equips every living thing 
with the impetus to impress upon its
environment its very own standards 
forging its own niche, not averse to
aggressively mounting a challenge to
lesser-endowed neighbours as a symbol 
of survival's signal tool in the territorial 
imperative that holds whichever species 
asserts survives and dominates. And so
it is that the humble gardenassiduously 
planned and worked by the resident 
gardener asserts its own design
celebrating the collective power of
vibrant life, the colour, architecture and
presence of its admirable resilience
resisting redundant human agency.