Maslow’s First Two Rungs

Could we not live
If not living here
Could we not be
Just to be

With what hope
With living near
There to see
How just to be

Yet if not here
Nor even nearby
The line
Could still be drawn

For would we not live
If not living here
Would we not
Give it our best shot

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Time Shared

I would not
Write this
Without you

I would not
Be here
Without you

By this pool
By this sea
In this swish hotel

I would not write
Of the many blues
Of the oceans

I would not write
Of the sheer clarity
Of the sky

On this island of Rhodes
In this country
Of Greece

I would not
Write this
To confound you

I would not
Write this
Unless found by you

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Focus; Elsewhere

Eight minutes is easy
Any more than that is quite an effort
Which requires mind games
To distract or delay
The onset of lack of concentration

If one could visualise
Then one would visualise
If one could meditate
Then one would meditate

But if all that one can be is restless
Then restless is what one has to be
Yet here
In a three-session concentration
One could so so easily fall asleep

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Place

The waiter knows how I progress
First a Coca-Cola Zero
Then, after penning a poem or two
It is time for an Americano, black

In this way
I have become a regular
Especially after
The diving lessons are concluded

The idyll
For idyllic it surely is
Arrived as my perfect destination
For which I am thankful

As soon as the crumb of cake
Lands on the sand
The sparrow swoops
To take it to a more private perch

Around the corner of the headland
A small cabin with a Swedish Flag
Or perhaps it is Greek or Argentinian
In any event it is blue with white

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Here

Where might those
Other worlds be
Where else might the sun
Bleach my auburn hair

How then not to simply be here
How not to be
So so continuously grateful
For the exclusive meditations

If only twenty-one was an option
Or thirty, or forty
Yet, how impatient
In those early years

Before turning turtle
And going back to college
To be taught The Poetics of Space
To study the poetry of human nature

Now to invest in the bodies
Of the beautiful people
To wonder, or wander
With a mind
Freed of all complications

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Christopher's Collected Works Website