I have learned that both are mostly true. The moments seared to my memory are equally the most monstrous and beautiful!
John Keats wrote that ‘Beauty is a joy forever’ and somewhere in my distant youth I heard some anonymous voice say that ‘ugliness goes to the bone.’
Dennis Mantin
I must escape from this limerick rhyme.
That I have entered from time to time.
I know I must go.
To stay still I know
That this irony is often sublime.
There once was a girl named Maxwell.
Played young girls for rich sex and then fell.
She got arrested it’s true.
Her freedom is through…
But she’s friends with a Prince! Secrets sell?
There once was a protester named Karen.
She’s protesting and hating and glarin.
She’s making things right.
Not her fault she’s white.
She’s just so damn smart and she’s sharin.
Dennis Mantin
In Parkdale there’s a gardener named Mark.
Who once howled at the moon from the park.
Now he’s up at dawn.
With hardly a yawn.
And no more at the moon does he bark.
There once was a dancer named Wayne
Who walked with a limp from his pain.
He’d dance day and night.
His feet faster than light.
Said, “The light in the tunnel a train.”
Wilf said, ” It’s not what you say or do… it is whether you can start thinking about her in a more charitable way.”
There are times when I am beneath this type of elevated grandiose spirituality and feel that I have reached my peak…
Then I see the face and eyes of my daughter and conceive of higher plateaus… In spite of me!
If I could treat others with the the same charity I have for my daughter… I fear I might be saintly!
The Wiseman waited in silence for the man to speak.
” I am seeking enlightenment as long as it doesn’t require shame or guilt, fear or pain.”
Silence remained.
She was lovely in that sunshine. Said she was searching for a song.
It wasn’t the words or melody or the need for right or wrong.
She was searching for some meaning or a feeling in her heart.
But that train had left the station and it was tearing her apart.
I told her it’s time to kneel, when all else fails pray.
She thanked me for mansplaining and I just said ok.
