once again

I find myself wearily
pointing it out (so often
in the company of those
consumed by the Modern Way
into flogging themselves silly
for seventy hours a week
to line other people’s pockets)
that the Ancient Greek root
of the word ‘school’
means ‘leisure’—
the opportunity to sit around
making a slow sense of the world
even unto the understanding
that making such sense
will eventually result in
proper rapidity of ratiocination

to train youth into the Way of Work
by frenetic activity
and preparation for slavery
is to annihilate the one and only
opportunity for the still
& silent growth of self

*

my new passport photo

tells me
that I have acquired
the face of an really old man
wrinkled & somewhat torn
with the rumpling of Time

it was no use then
trying to project
into it down the years—
in order to preserve its youth—
the youth I feel

face develops
in spite of
what only you can know
persists in the wrinkles
of your one & only brain-pan

*

Haiku

midnight fusillades—
at last the Revolution?
just New Year fireworks…