Submitted by Neil McKay on February 25, 2012
I shouldn't even be writing this to you.
I don't want to give you the impression
That I have bought into the anthropomorphic
vision of white beard and long flowing robes
or white robe and long flowing beards
that our simplistic culture hangs on you.
I do not believe you are all knowing
Not the way I understand knowing
Nor do I believe in your benevolence
Toward me specifically, nor my family,
nor my species even.
Remember how I mocked you in all those other poems?
How I said you didn't exist in that poem about my socks?
How I took you to task for destroying the earth by flood?
How I compared you unflatteringly to my rich uncle?
No, of course you don't.
You are not human and you don't have a human memory
If you have knowledge at all, it's something I can't comprehend
And vice versa.
I'll give you this much: you are the way
The truth and the light.
It's just that you're not some guy saying,
"I am the way, the truth and the light"
I do believe you are in control
But I don't believe you are controlling
There is a path and we are on it
And it will continue for a long while
We will stray from the path
We will loop back and lose our way
We may follow others down the path
Some of those others will veer off
Some will walk backward
But the path is there
The path is you
The path is always there
And I will follow
Submitted by Neil McKay on February 22, 2012
Don't go to the store when you're hungry.
Don't go to the bar when you're dry
Never hook up with women who want you
They are silly, naive and they lie.
Buy groceries after you've eaten
Drink water instead of that beer
Chase women who choose to ignore you
For reasons that soon will be clear.
I've come home with spray cans of cheese whiz
I've come home and slept on the lawn
I've come home with flirts and with and teases
By morning, I wished they were gone.
But the smile that I get from a woman
Who previously thought I was sleazy,
Is worth more than all of the kisses
I got from the girls who were easy.
Submitted by Neil McKay on February 22, 2012
My constant companion,
My annoying muse,
Climbs once again on my shoulder.
"Let me be a pillow for your head," he says.
"No, not there. There."
My head rests at an unnatural angle
But I relax as the purring starts
And I allow him to knead me.
Submitted by Neil McKay on February 18, 2012
It is, of course,
not the rising sun
That is new every morning.
It is me.
Submitted by Neil McKay on February 15, 2012
He lives in a van near the park off Broadway.
He's lived there since I met him
Five years ago. At a poetry reading.
He's not a poet, he'll tell you.
But he can draw.
At the time, he was enrolled in
The graphic arts program at
Whatcom Community College.
He used the lab computers
He didn't own one.
He struggled with Web Design
But he could draw.
He got his certificate
But he is in his sixties
And he lives in a van
Near a park
He's not going to find work
It's not going to happen
He's got some issues for sure
Depression and something else
Alcohol? Narcotics?
He spent his days at the Public Market
On a stool drinking tea
At the coffee kiosk
Grasping for conversation
From the regulars who recognized him
He was studying buddhism,
I couldn't help him
I felt bad about it then
But I know more about that now.
We all have demons
We can't be battling each other's
He got kicked out of the Market eventually
No surprise but now what?
He just sits in his van.
Reminding me of myself.
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