ON LOSING MY SOUL

There are many things you lose with your soul:

Desire, discretion, compassion, control;

Each morning is torture,

Each evening a curse,

Nothing gets better -

Everything’s worse;

You clamber up mountains to fall off the cliffs,

You swim in the ocean to set life adrift,

But nothing fills up the hole in your heart -

Not life, not death, not science, not art.

The wisdom of saints and the guile of an elf

Could lead you to everything but your own self;

That’s why when you lose it they say you have sinned -

As then all your joys are dust in the wind. 

BITTER HARVEST

O’ you who love, love not as such

To know so little and love so much

For if you do, I think you’ll find

Love undeserved bears love unkind

And please don’t put your faith in words

For words are purely empty things

That claim to fly with soaring birds

While knowing well they have not wings

My heart was once a tree of love

Beneath whose roots the truth did dig

And having crashed to earth above

It lies there now – a broken twig

I tried so hard to face it out

But faced with truth, my visage paled

I danced for rain in summer’s drought

To produce a single drop – I failed!

Yoda Joins the Dark Side!

Bad news for Jedi Knights everywhere - the best of them has now gone dark. In a shattering revelation today, Yoda claimed that changed sides he has.

“Finally got to me the posturing of young Skywalker did. Fought for eons I had. Up he popped and won the war. Hate him I must!”

Since succumbing to his hate, Yoda has won the title of “Most Diminutive Sith Lord” ever and been widely acclaimed the Mini-Me of the Emperor himself.

“Changed has much. Wear black I now do. Slimming, it is.”

Luke’s only comment on hearing the disheartening news was, “I never did trust that sneaky little know-it-all. I’m not surprised in the least. Since finding out Darth Vader was my Father, nothing shocks me at all!”

The green, pot-bellied, big-eared fiend has declared that he will bring the newly re-established Republic to its knees, just so he can look them in the eye. His parting words were, “Teach them, I will!”

MUSE

Crowded table,

Busy, loud –

To me it’s still

An empty place

Alone, even

In the crowd,

On the table-top

I trace your face.

Of late, it seems,

Where ever I reach

Just brings me back

To where I stand;

While others play

Upon the beach,

I draw your picture

In the sand.

Stink Panther!

“The Pink Panther” tonight won the Award for the Worst Remake of the Decade. Critics were still in a feeding frenzy when the Box Office closed last week on another disappointing note for ticket sales.

The Chairman of the Hollywood Film society went so far as to say, “Steve Martin should retire. He’s had white hair for too long now and has obviously gone senile if he thinks he can be as funny as Peter Sellers – the original Inspector Clouseau.”

He was also appalled by Beyonce’s lack-luster performance as the female lead. He commented, “The least we expected of her was to look sexy – but she put on so many pounds before the film that she made Queen Latifah look quite petite by comparison”. 

The President of the Paris-based Pink Panther club has called the movie “an outrage”. “The Casting Director was obviously retarded,” he said. “Not only did he choose Steve Martin as Clouseau but he also blatantly overlooked Jean Reno for the part. His comic timing was better, he more closely resembled Clouseau and wouldn’t even have had to fake a French accent! But instead of being Clouseau, he was dangled before the audience as a sad reminder of what could have been.”

The unpleasant aroma left in the wake of the Pink Panther will hopefully ensure that Steve Martin never again tortures viewers with his pale parody of a true comic genius. The President of the Pink Panther Club claimed, “the sad thing is that Steve only made himself look bad by trying to aspire so high. He should have remade a comedy more in his league, like “The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes”.

THE JOURNEY

I walked many miles
On the flat, barren land;
And green were the isles
In the ocean of sand;


But the isles were illusion
In that infinite tract -
As the heat caused a fusion
Of fiction and fact -


So that when you came
I doubted my eyes
I thought you the same -
The way the land lies;


But, when I left you,
The land itself changed:
I felt I moved to
A garden exchanged;


I walked many miles
On grass and on dew,
Knowing, all the while,
I walked back to you.

Macgyver Returns!

Trapped for nearly a quarter century, Macgyver today finally escaped from the last tough spot he was put in. After being teleported to the Earth’s core and left with nothing but a banjo and a tuning fork, he managed to contrive them into an escalator to the surface.

When asked why it took him so long, Macgyver stated “I blame the banjo - its the most useless thing to be caught in a fix with.”

For years, viewers wondered what happened to Macgyver. They never guessed he was underneath them clawing his way back up. He is now a lot older but still just as handy.

When asked what he ate while down there, he claimed he had existed solely on worms that he lured to himself with the vibrations of the tuning fork. 

Dubbed the Human Swiss Army Knife for his exploits, Macgyver was a huge threat to villains unwise enough not to shoot him on sight. Locking him up or putting him in a death-defying situation before leaving for a coffee never seemed to work. 

His penchant for always making the best of a bad turn of events was unchanged as he even managed to find a silver lining to his recent ordeal. “It could have been worse, you know,” he said, “I’m afraid of heights but depths I’m okay with.”

Twenty-five years underground, however, has not been kind to the hero. His hair has thinned and his once handsome, roguish features have sagged a bit. The eyes remain the same, though – always seeking an unthinkable way out of an impossible situation. 

When asked what his next adventure would be, he said “I’m too old for them now. Maybe I’ll start a school to train the escape artists of today. From what’s on TV, I’m pretty sure I could show David Copperfield a thing or two!”

TIME ENOUGH

Time enough to stop the clock

And turn the wind upon itself

To touch the heart within the rock

That lies beyond the window shelf -

Time enough to wake the dead

And drench the sun with water, mild -

To dye the moon fluorescent red

And stir the oceans, cold and wild.

Time enough to see the world

And wander far from place to place -

To watch the sail of time unfurled

And taste the salt upon my face.

Time enough to walk the skies

And believe in roads that lie beyond -

To watch light fade from my eyes

And live in life not half so fond.

Time enough to think of God

And question that which I believe -

To talk and turn, wink and nod

And in my soul, to pine and grieve.

Time enough to fall in love

And love the thought of love alone -

To reach for shining stars above

And feel the heart that turns to stone.

Time enough to say my piece

And keep my peace forever more -

To hear my words upon the breeze

That winds across a barren moor;

And time enough to learn to sleep

When life has just become too rough

To yearn to make that sudden leap -

To learn to die, there’s time enough.

The Spidey Suit!

Spidey fans the world over have launched a collective law suit against Tobey Maguire for destroying the image of their friendly neighborhood Spiderman.

The President of the web spinner’s fan club, Christian Bale, stated: “By agreeing to play Spiderman, Tobey willfully and knowingly turned our hero into a wuss. Even asthmatic kittens had more chance of striking fear into the hearts of bad guys!”

His Vice President, Robert Downey Junior, added “It would have been better to have killed Spiderman. But now we’ve lost all respect for him. Who ever heard of a Super Hero pansy enough to start bawling over Kirsten Dunst?”

Maguires legal team has swiftly counter-sued the fan club for its insensitivity to the movie star’s feelings. Apparently, its condemnation has sparked a genuine outburst of emotion from him that hasn’t abated as yet.

Bale remained unmoved and cited this as only more damning evidence that Tobey was never meant for the part. He said, “It was a colossal enough disappointment watching Brendan Routh lulling Superman fans into a coma – but what Toby did was just plain cruel.”

Perhaps the youngest Japanese member of the fan club summed up their case best with “Me cannot even watch the cartoons no more. Tobey Maguire, him very bad man!”

CLEVER

Clever?
Me? Never!
It would
Forever
Sever
The tether
To normal,
The pleasure
Of numb;
I mustn't
Ever,
Of clever,
Tender a crumb;
As it is far better
Just playing dumb.