In Māyā's Sock Drawer

“The mind is not a part of the world. It is the whole.”

— Erwin Schrödinger

Schrödinger's cat purrs in his box,

Cuddling up to Māyā's duvet,

Kneads the comforter with her paws,

While somewhere near, a final say

Knocks on virtual quantum doors.

Cats may think they'll live forever,

Humans suppose—that's not clever!

A cat's smarter than the worn-out phone

That sits in Māyā's sock drawer at home,

Lying there dumb, no more to roam.

No phone is dumber than a man

Who screws things up because he can;

Or woman wishing that she had more

Assorted junk from a cosmetic store;

Or person of indeterminate gender

Bent on a soliptical sexual bender.

Gurus surmise that we're all One

If so, I ask you, where’s the fun—

Unless the One comes down to many

Monads dancing, ten a penny?

Saturday, January 17, 2026

Pastiche

The murmuring of Bees has ceased;

   But murmuring of some

Posterior, prophetic,

   Has simultaneous come,

—Emily Dickinson

Prophetic powers she possessed,

And thoughts she could not show,

More sensibly by us professed

Than Persons, that we know—

They make no more sense today,

Than bean rows to a hoe!

She was just a tiny thing,

And I am smaller yet

Who roam about this human hive

Attempting to forget.

Cover: Louis Masai, When We Go (Shoreditch, London)

Friday, January 16, 2026

Logorrhea

Even the best poets write too much—

They can't help themselves. Then,

Somehow, their poems may get published.

Reading them there, they blush inwardly:

As Dr Johnson said of Milton's Paradise Lost:

“None ever wished it longer than it is.”

Who wants a prequel to Goethe's Faustus

Or desires a sequel toThe Waste Land?

Perhaps it was to stem the inexhaustible flow of his Dream Songs

That John Berryman jumped off that bridge.

Emily Dickinson was the wise one,

Who wrote her lines on scraps of paper

And stuck them in her bedside drawer.

I'm no beau of Amherst Street, but

I'm as fortunate. No one will publish me!

Writing my verses on my phone, I release them

Into the uncharted wilderness of the Internet

And watch them race off into the darkening jungle, whispering:

“¡Adiós! Go with God! Goodbye!”

There’s nothing like obscurity to help a poem fly!