Qoheleth Haiku 2:21

²¹because sometimes one who has toiled

with wisdom and knowledge and skill

must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it.

This also is vanity and a great evil.

When it’s not enough

Our best knowledge and wisdom

We act foolishly

One skilled in the use

Of erudite qualities

May still lack wisdom

Knowledge and wisdom

That fails to meet God’s design

Is the art of fools

No one will enjoy

That for which one did not work

Which does not meet needs

The saying is true

You cannot take it with you

Unless you take love

We will miss the point

If we put not things in place

Our minds remain blunt

Qoheleth Haiku 2:19

¹⁹ --and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish?

Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled

and used my wisdom under the sun.

This also is vanity.

What of trust fund kids

Most of them use foolishly

What someone left them

Someone else will rule

Over that which I have ruled

I cannot change that

Wisdom is not wise

If it toils to attain things

That do not meet needs

Labor’s emptiness

Lies in the alteration

Of the unchanging

Why should my children

Benefit from my labor

With unearned pleasure

Who is the master

If mastery is transient

Nothing’s forever

Depression

All my pictures now are twisted;

I have lost hold of what was truth.

I know that I’m growing older;

And that I’ve lost the strength youth.

My pictures that are fantasies

Obliterate reality:

I cannot tell the good from bad;

I’m having trouble knowing me.

The preacher tells me that I’ve sinned;

And I have no rebuttal there;

For sometimes I will question grace

And ask God if he really cares.

When morning dawns with darkness,

And I cannot get out of bed,

Lying there, the darkness deepens;

I sometimes wish that I were dead.

But life lies there beside of me,

Oblivious to my pain:

I must rise in my depression,

Get up, and face the world again.

©2012, Qoheleth

Qoheleth Haiku 2:20

                                                             Edvard Munch                     

²⁰So I turned and gave my heart up to despair

concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun,

Great despair will come

When we see that our efforts

Will come to nothing

If we miss the mark

Of what God designed for us

What do we have left

I will make the choice

Whether I despair or not

Thought creates feeling

How does wisdom miss

That which is life’s essentials

And end in despair

Toil under the sun

The same as under the mood

Should be done in light

Though the sun gives light

It will not enlighten our

Misguided wisdom

Qoheleth Haiku 2:18

I hated all my toil 
in which I had toiled under the sun,

seeing that I must leave it 
to those who come after me...

Why should I pass on

My estate to my children

Did they work for it

Every generation should

Work for that which meets their needs

Be responsible

Hate is a strong word

When it means to devalue

It’s even stronger

After I have died

I no longer have control

That I once controlled

The old folk saying

You cannot take it with you

Surely has it right

Profitless toil

That which I seek to give me

That which it cannot

God of the Forsaken

(Song Lyrics)

You are God of quarks and photons

Of the universe and more

You are God of health and sickness

Of the virgin and the whore

Of capitalist and communist

The union man and scab

You are God of Mohammed

Of the Buddha and the Bab

Of Jesus and of Moses

Great Spirit above all

God of our redemption

Of Eden of the fall

You are God of limitations

And without boundary

God of the neutrino

And of infinity

(Chorus)

You are God of the Forsaken

Of the broken and the torn

Of the burned and the forgotten

Of the dead of the unborn

You are God of choice and God of chance

Of immutability

Of change and transition

Of time and eternity

You are God of stocks and Wall Street

And of Tobacco Road

You are God of care-free life styles

And heavy crushing loads

You are God of crucifixion

Good Friday Easter morn

You are God of resurrection

The rejoicing the forlorn

You are God of plains and mountains

Of the lotus and the mire

Of the deserts and of wetlands

Of the nothing the entire

You are God of human squalor

Of the mansion on the hill

God of all our boredom

And God of every thrill

(Chorus)

(Bridge)

There is nothing that evades You

In the rise and fall

I cannot escape your presence

You are God of all

You are God of celebration

Of the dirge and of the dance

You are God of hearth and cradle

Of the ladle and the lance

Of storms and of tranquility

Of serenity of peace

You are God of war and turmoil

Of the loss and the increase

You are God of mind and matter

The Spirit of the earth

God of convalescence

Of digression and of birth

You are God of jail and prison

God of liberty

You dwell with the enslaved

You live with the free

(Chorus 2x)

(Bridge)

(Tag)

I cannot escape your presence

You are God of  all

© 2006 Qoheleth

Qoheleth Haiku 2:17

¹⁷So I hated life,

because what is done under the sun was grievous to me;

for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

Hate that disvalues

That which God calls valuable

Does not value God

If we cannot see

The value in creation

We cannot see God

If we place our worth

In the material world

Our worth eludes us

Ancient Qoheleth

From cultural perspective

Misses the picture

One must understand

That the essential value

Of matter is God’s

The world is not ours

To meet our physical needs

Nothing more than that

Existence belongs

To God as supreme owner

We may borrow it

Remember Me

Remember Me

Children, don’t forget me.

I will soon be gone.

I came to stay with you a while,

But now I’m moving on.

I taught you everything I could—

Gave all I have to give;

And now I’m going to the cross

To die that you may live.

Come eat a little bread with me;

Drink a little wine;

And I will live inside your hearts;

And you will live in mine.

This my body, this my blood,

I freely give for you;

Take them and remember me

Every time you do.

Remember me.

Remember me.

I am leaving now,

And you’ll no longer see

Me in your presence physically;

But by the bread and wine

Know that I live inside your hearts

And that you live in mine.

© 2012, Qoheleth

Qoheleth Haiku 2:16

¹⁶For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools,

seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten.

How can the wise die just like fools?

It does not matter

The wise one and fool alike

Have the same value

All have God’s value

We ask then why do all die

Maybe death is life

All have God’s value

We ask then why do all die

God in Jesus died

We’re not remembered

Beyond living memory

But God is alive

Death is a portal

To another phase of life

Embrace death in turn

Please remember me

Said Jesus at the last meal

He shared with his friends

Of our greatest fears

The fear to be forgotten

God remember me

Qoheleth Haiku 2:15

15Then I said to myself, 

"What happens to the fool will happen to me also; 

why then have I been so very wise?" 

And I said to myself that this also is vanity.

Life is no respecter

Of one’s mental qualities

All have the same needs

Death is no respecter

Of one’s moral condition

Everyone will die

Things we can’t control

Occur to all in common

Even unique ones

The wisest will die

Perhaps he already has

Or should I say “she”

How does the sage know

That he has been very wise

Does someone tell him

Who instructs the wise

Don’t they tell him at the start

What his end will be

As a fading breath

When the wise man breathes his last

He fades with the fool

Qoheleth Haiku 2:14

14The wise have eyes in their head, 
but fools walk in darkness. 
Yet I perceived that the same fate befalls all of them.

They’re common to all

Life death and bowel movements

Sage and fool alike

If the sage can see

That which leaves the fool clueless

How should they relate

Neither sage nor fool
Understands the quality
That separates them

They walk hand in hand

The wise man and the foolish one

Toward the same fate

We go separate ways

Traveling down the road of life

We will meet in death

Alone together

Although our bodies may touch

Our minds deviate

Sometimes the Road Is Long

Sometimes the road is long

And seems without an end,

When everything goes wrong,

And I can’t find a friend;

But then I hear your song

Floating on the wind.

It tells me that I belong

And that I can depend

On your presence here

To walk the road with me

And take away the fear

Of things I cannot see.

You promise you’ll be near

Through any tragedy,

And always let me hear

The truth that sets me free.

© 2012, Qoheleth

Qoheleth Haiku 2:13

¹³ Then I saw that wisdom excels folly

 as light excels darkness.

We live and we learn

How to make sound distinction

Between right and wrong

What changes our minds

When we glimpse reality

Our pictures will change

Our ambivalence

Caught between two opinions

We lose sight of truth

When you cannot see

Wisdom and folly differ

You are in darkness

Wisdom lives in light

Still each day wisdom chooses

To avoid darkness

Qoheleth Haiku 2:12

¹²So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly; 

for what can the one do who comes after the king? 

Only what has already been done.

Cynicism reigns

In the disparaging mind

That fails to see hope

With extreme boasting

There is madness and folly

It’s perverted praise

What about the king

He’s essentially the same

As the foolish man

All that a king does

Does not change his personhood

Just experience

Never the same thing

Done today as yesterday

It just looks that way

The king cannot know

The life of the common man

And vice versa too

  

The king did it all

Everything a king can do

But not what I do

Qoheleth Haiku 2:11

¹¹Then I considered all that my hands had done

and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again,

all was vanity and a chasing after wind,

and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Time and energy

Are the things we have to spend

We must spend wisely

What is it I see

When I look at what I’ve done

Something or nothing

What does it profit

For one to gain the whole world

And lose one’s being

Material gain

Gains only material

Amounts to nothing

One chasing the wind

As a dog chasing its tail

Gets where one started

© 2012, Qoheleth

Riding on a Raindrop

                                       http://www.ribosomes.com

Riding on a raindrop

Sailing with the moon

Going to bed at sunrise

Sleeping until noon

Walking through the Milky Way

Childhood fantasy

Playing with my memories

The only thing that’s free 

© 2012 Qoheleth

Strange

                                                       Daryl Musick, artist

Strange

He’s always been a little strange;

Folks say he’s rather odd;

He talks to someone they can’t see;

He says he talks to God.

He’s forgiving those who hurt him;

He turns the other cheek;

He gives away ’most all he has;

But people say he’s weak.

He would never sue a debtor;

He helps him pay his debt;

He’d walk a mile or two with you;

You’d never hear him fret.

He’s friendly to those others hate;

He never counts his loss;

But he lived life to the fullest, then

He died upon a cross.

© 2012, Qoheleth

Qoheleth Haiku 2:10

¹⁰Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them;

I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil,

and this was my reward for all my toil.

Curiosity

Is more than an emotion

It’s an essential

Creativity

Out of curiosity

Meets a basic need

Desire of the eyes

If sought for desire alone

Is sin as per John

Eyes see potential

Of making an improvement

On situations

Pursuit of pleasure

An inalienable right

Or a corruption

The pursuit of toil

Satisfying basic needs

Produces pleasure

What is a reward

Is it not affirmation

Of a task well done

ADD

I’m not good at writing stories;

I can’t consternate that long;

I damn sure can’t write a novel;

Hell, I can’t even write a song.

Should I squeeze out a poem;

My attention deficit

Just leaves me with frustration;

So, now I’ll have to quit.

©Qoheleth, 2012