How do you know what to believe
Especially when it’s words?
Did you see it, did you do it
Or was it only heard?
Was it real in time and space
Or only in your head?
Was it a thing you can hold
Or only something said?
And can you tell which is which
If you’re awake or dreaming?
How do you know what to believe
What's real or only seeming?
(9/5/26)
They cradle absence in inherited creed,
A sculpted sky of words they never test,
Where certainty outgrows the need to read
The fine-print silence lurking in each rest.
They build a Heaven stitched from stolen light,
A fragile citadel of borrowed breath,
Where doubt is taught to bow and step from sight,
And fear is softened into faith till death.
For Heaven lives in language, not in ground,
A story tuned to quiet human dread,
A place that only ever can be found
Within the living, not among the dead.
And when the final pulse gives out its claim,
No gates unbar, no choir bends the air;
Just vast unlit indifference, no name,
Where belief fades into a wordless stare.
I like to invite Happiness over for tea
But I'm always anxious when it stays longer than I expect
While it sits in the living room, peacefully drinking from it's cup
My heart beats faster
Anytime soon, the cup will break
Maybe there's too much sugar in the tea
I start pacing around the house doing everything but entertaining my guest
But when I come back
It's still sitting there
But why?
Does it not know that I don't want it's company?
Does it not know that I would rather it tell me that the tea is too sweet instead of drinking it in silence?
Does it not know that I don't trust it?
When happiness comes over for tea
I always expect the bad things to sneak in with it
When they don't show up, I become skeptical
The silence is deafening
Being able to hear my thoughts
To have them not yell at me
To not have to sweep up broken shards of plates offf the floor
Or to not be pulling shards of glass out of my skin
It's so peaceful
Which is why it feels wrong
I know why it keeps returning
It knows I don't accept it
Yet it still shows up
Waiting for the day I sit across from it
Finally sharing a cup of tea with it.
You could wallpaper your home with her skepticism
She trusts no one
Especially not her siblings
Or her parents
This sets her turntable for life
I doubt is her mantra
Bet you are lying is her motto
People are not standing in line to become her friend
What are we, if not seafarers?
Writing words and aspirations to escape,
Kraken's grasp of deep dark seas.
Of turbulent brains during the storm.
A wave of skepticism, as if love was magic.
Isn't conceivable that this never occurs.
Written: November 29, 2022
surely hate
being in jailed seat
I'm battling
to be heard
not shoved back into silence
halved to denial
Written: April 30, 2022
What is this soul we talk about?
Might I find it in a droplet of water
Perhaps, in a pop tune … a shout,
In a loving mother, an abusive father?
Elusive and ethereal, so hard to find
Is it in our unique thought processes,
A synonym for the individual mind,
Something every human possesses?
Perhaps, a figment of imagination?
Something we cannot understand,
Many a theologian’s rapt fascination
Part of being under God’s command.
A faith word of import, I assume,
All that’s left of us when body dies
All that matters, we can presume –
Is it the ultimate goal or life prize?
A longstanding mystery, to be sure
Many folks say when we die, it’s over
What is to be gained by being pure,
When we’ll be buried under clover.
Written April 6, 2022
I plead, out of cynicism, for accepting.
I am here, and my regrets are flagging.
It's unlikely for me just to be harming.
My chest has gotten used to my suffering.
Confession is ugly and does not avail.
My silence helps me feel like such an angel.
My poem often turned into a puzzle.
It seems as if I've been writing in a low yell.
Sometimes specific notes deter.
The reward flies off with a cursor.
Inhabiting my waves, rapture
My distress showed the flatter.
Holes obscure the road.
I'm escaping the old code.
The drills aren't the fight ride.
My troops have busted the spread.
I may not have a sword, nor am I trying to keep.
With a stick over my sheep to weep
Empty promises waft effortlessly through the air
The vacuous bleating of self-important bloviators,
Who claim the best interests of the noble citizenry
Uppermost in their clever, plotting minds who dare
To seek approval from the greater masses at the polls,
While thinly disguising their not-so-quixotic intentions.
Such troublesome breaches in the breastwork
Of liberty, these mischievous self-indulgent trolls
Who feed from the public troughs. Even better,
They claim to do what is right for their constituencies,
And call themselves names like honorable civil servant
Purporting to faithfully execute oaths to the letter
Of the law. I think such is seldom the case, at all, since
They have made for themselves careers of chicanery.
Empty promises -- no more than carefully crafted lies
Cause the skeptical, intelligent folk to wince.
SECOND PLACE WINNER
Written November, 2020
Submitted to "A Meaningful Poem" Contest
Sponsored by Constance La France
He meandered the alleyways of being
uncertain of the origins of his conceptions,
unclear about the emergence of his thought.
Along the way, he happened on Erebus,
deepening shadows of skepticism,
darkening the lines of incredulity.
He regarded this as quite strange. What possible
value could there be to acuminate agnosticism?
What purpose could cultivating qualms serve?
Erebus stopped and studied him,
smiling as though he read his mind!
“Without doubt, you would never know
when you were certain,” he said. “Without
skepticism, you would never find
faith.”
Nonbeliever
by Michael R. Burch writing as Kim Cherub
She smiled a thin-lipped smile
(What do men know of love?)
then rolled her eyes toward heaven
(Or that Chauvinist above?).
Skepticism and Inepticism
Sometimes we seem to understand sceptism,
Unless it has been interfered with inepticism;
Not sure,
If impure,
Then ended up being fooled by deceiptiveism.
Jim Horn
(title shamelessly borrowed from Daniel C. Dennett’s book of the same name)
Brainwashed parents, brainwashed kids.
Abort the vortex: hit the skids!
Become the one who dares to find
How much tradition's tricked your mind.
Not by parents’ views alone,
By peers, as well, strange seeds were sown.
Beliefs took root, grew deep and real,
Yet may defraud; don’t go by feel.
When you’ve reexamined all,
Admit your knowledge still is small.
Instruct your children that they, too,
Might learn the most when doubting you.
The account of Descartes was redoubtable:
“I exist, since this thought is undoubtable.”
Mister Hume peered inside,
Said, “I see naught besides
Just my thoughts, so your logic is floutable.”
Poor ol’ Pyrrho, he’s the hero
Of my somber poetry:
Couldn’t figure how to pick your
Core beliefs with certainty.
Bold Descartes, he got the party
Started with his Cogito.
Up popped Pyrrho (what a zero!),
Said to think is not to know.
Next, John Locke, he tried his luck; he
Claimed true knowledge must appear
By consensus of the senses,
But just how, he wasn’t clear.
David Hume, an ornery human,
Stripped Sir Science of support.
Just one reason he could seize on:
Custom is our sheer resort.
Kant, the strange one, said, now hang on;
For what’s really real don’t fuss:
Be content to just consent to
What our minds make real to us.
Lastly, Hegel scored a bagel
With his dialectic ways:
Synthesizing’s just surmising
When you have no solid base.
Oh, bewail their learned failure
To make absolutely sure
Of the theories man can fear he’s
Welcomed with a false allure!
As for poor ol’ Pyrrho’s moral,
Which I think we should applaud:
Don’t be blurtin’ that you’re certain—
You are just a man, not God.
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