Short Unanswerable Poems

FELLOW COSMIC TRAVELERS

We who seek 
answers 
to universal and
unanswerable 
questions 
will always fall first 
because of imponderables
but we will lead 
the human parade
with verve because
I like you 
understand 
the sacrifice of the quest....

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Dear unanswerable creator.
Oh, merciful and carelessly brutal lord.
We are alive for a moment.
We have our pleasures and despairs.
We seem but episodes in a series.
A question whispered, like gentle breathing:
Do our frolics play on in astral syndication
or are we recycled into cosmic dust?...

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Mr. Fear

Hello, my old "friend," Mr. Fear,

I see you’ve brought your butterflies;

You have stiffened the stomach

And tightened taut the eyes.


What will I find in the reaches of my mind,

Some mystery mean of the unanswerable kind?

The goodness of God  is very near.

A prayerful petition will securely you bind.
...

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I was ready to board the ship
laden with terror on mortal waves.
The patriarch was dying inside
the sleeve of hidden rocks. 

Hope and death,
death and hope
flicker in dark. What if the blasts
start again in the cool air?

The planks lick the salt of earth.
Lipless mouths cannot speak.
Departure of sun was blameless,
unanswerable to human wails.


SATISH VERMA...

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In any argumentation,
there's none as unanswerable
as a smug diner's opinion.


You gush about chilled champagne,
To my unschooled taste buds,
that's simply bottled, sugared rain.


And you adore sturgeon caviar.
To my unpolished palate,
that's salty clay dipped in tar.


No debate about the agendum.
No dispute in matters of taste:
De gustibus non est disputandum!...

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‘Who am I’ an unanswerable question
The questioner being in a hypnotic trance
The mind that asks itself requiring negation
Dissolution of identity being our only chance

Clue being ‘what is that that neither comes nor goes’
That that experiences unaffected as formless awareness
Silence & stillness revealing our Self as bliss in repose
Resonating with Ohm in an unceasing flow of blissfulness...

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In any argumentation,
  none is as unanswerable
    as every diner's opinion;

you gush about that chilled champagne,
  to my uninitiated taste buds
    it's but some bottled, sugared rain;

and you adore sturgeon caviar,
  to my naive, unschooled palate,
    a salty lump of clay with tar;

no debate in the agendum,
  in matters of taste there's no dispute,
    de gustibus non disputandum!...

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What will you do?,  they ask
What is your plan?, they insist
Who will you be?, they demand 
I stare at them from behind myself 
My eyes opaque with indifference
My lips still but my mind frantic
Already struggling to perceive the 
present, forced to confront the future 
I DO NOT KNOW! The truth cries inside
Panicking now I simply tell them 
What I know they like to hear
I give them answers to 
unanswerable questions...

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I stumble and bumble through life, almost aimlessly sometimes. 
I struggle for the answers to unanswerable questions, but I try hard to believe. 
I pretend to know what I'm talking about, but for the most part, it's a farce. 
I act the part of someone in control, but that part, I've yet to achieve. 
I know I'm not the only one that clearly has no clue;
but I think I'll stay in this ignorant bliss, because I happen to like the view......

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Silence stormed the house
As he entered with empty calabash
With its mouth facing the ground
And he could tell from the faces
Unanswerable stream of questions
Of those gathered to scoop soup
Whoever washed his feet at dawn;
Cleaned the face with calabash water
To pay visit to the sage’s kraal
And came back with empty calabash
With hands dangling like bull’s tail
Closed ancestors’ toothless mouths
Yawning to drink imaginary milk...

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2020
The sands are running out
falling just outside our grasp
seemingly out of reach,
distant and taunting as they pass.
Closing our eyes we mockingly mourn
these last whimpers of time's fleeting
unrecoverable stolen moments.
Woefully beseeching a fickle god
for relief of our doubts, our fears,
our unanswerable questions
and unanswered prayers.
The grains of life ebb away
uncounted, seeping through
the groping fingers of now.


John G. Lawless
12/26/2020...

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