gershon hepner - endless drinking

Endless halving, argued Zeno,
won’t help us to reach the end.
Similarly, we can’t wend
our way to veritas with vino,
because whatever we opine
can only be half-true at best
when opinions we attest
unsoberly are based on wine.
However, when we stop to think,
the truths we find is rarely more
than half-truths, so let us ignore
what Zeno may have thought, and drink.

Inspired by a poem by Kay Ryan, in her collection “Flamingo Watching”:

This Life

It’s a pickle, this life.
Even shut down to a trickle
it carries every kind of particle
that causes strife on a grander scale:
to be miniature is to be swallowed
by a miniature whale. Zeno knew
the law that we know: no matter
how carefully diminished, a race
can only be half finished with success;
then comes the endless halving of the rest -
the ribbon’s stalled approach, the helpless
red-faced urgings of the coach.



1/6/09

gershon hepner

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/endless-drinking/