Our lives are a spinning maze,

at best we lose our way;

we are complex, the humanity

we hold so dearly … gets stretched.

But always remember that life is colour,

and each one has many hues; they

stretch out before us like

a path, they guide us,

mark our passing, and

because we contain all hues, some

are darker, and can mark turbulent

times in life.

But always remember, you

choose the colour you see,

if it is black or a shade of gray,

a friend can be there

to help in your need

to get back to the joyous path,

the road of colour, the walk of life.

By GlennD. Clarke 04/10

We had an absolutely marvelous time … Christmas 2009 has been duly welcomed.

We went to Woodbine racetrack for our staff Christmas party last night … What a marvelous time. The staff were so professional, the space although hardly what you would call private nor intimate was so pleasant. A huge Thank you to our employer for the food and drink; both flowed, and were delicious.

It was also fascinating to watch a lot of novice bettors getting into the spirit of harmless betting on “the ponies”. There were no fortunes made (how much of a fortune can be got on a $2 bet to show), but there was a lot of fun had by all. The whoops when someone won a couple of bucks were so hilarious it put a smile on everyone’s face. I myself lost a bit, but was pleasantly surprised when I realized that we all did, and it really didn’t matter; no one’s financial life was placed in jeopardy.

After a while (I’m not good at sitting for too long), I got up and took a walk to the slots. I’ve been in gambling establishments in Vegas, and have to admit that I was not affected the way I was here. That could be a trick of time, for over time we are, through experience, impacted in different ways by similar situations; such was my experience that evening.

Walking into the room was an experience of its own, and the first feeling I had was one of … repugnance … and then I was hit by the dominant feeling in the room, and the only way I can explain it is this: a feeling of abject desperation was unmistakably palatable; it was cloying, like cheap perfume in a warm room. As I wound my way through the crowds, I spotted dozens of people tethered to the machines with what could have been room cards or credit cards, as if an umbilicus from each person “fed” the machine its meal of cash. What I found most disturbing was the look on the faces; like an episode of Rod Stirling’s “The Twilight Zone”, they were bereft of emotion … On them was the look of … hunger, want, the need to be jolted, like a junkie going for the “big fix”.

At one point I stood behind a man who proceeded to fill a machine with fifty-dollar bills to the tune of a thousand dollars, and he was going through it with what I saw as no payback at all. I do not profess to be any professional on the “art of gambling”, but I know loss when I see it, and it was everywhere in that room. You could tell the people with the five-hundred pound gorilla on their backs – I saw one woman crying because “her machine” paid out for the next guy who climbed into her seat, and she had been there all night to that point, he for about twenty minutes. I am sure this is a story that plays out all of the time in places like this, and the sadness goes on.

I have seen addiction, and I have seen it in all of its many permutations –  but the worst is gambling to this degree; it ruins every life it touches in the most insidious ways: families are ruined, lives destroyed, children abandoned and left to wander while Mom and Dad go and squander the rent money, food money, etc., etc.  Such desperate throwing away of money rapes marriages, defiles love, destroys human character … and it is legal.

I am not a Puritan, and I believe we all have our own ways of unwinding. I play pool online; it relaxes me after a long day, and I also have partaken in the occasional game of poker (for change) — harmless fun with friends and relatives, no hard feelings and all in the name of fun. But when one has the opportunity to go to a true gambling facility and view the truth through the eyes of someone who is truly ensconced into the “mean streets ” of gambling hell, it will leave a mark on you, it will change you in ways you have never known.

We have all heard the stories of what “The Demon of the Spin” can do to a person who is locked into the mode of “Gotta win”; we’ve heard of people who lose paycheques in an effort to “hit the Big One”, whose marriages have crumbled and died because of the need for next hit of dice or cards, of people so desperate to win that they lose their homes, and the occasional and extremely sad cumulation of loss in suicide. When life gets this huge, what chance has a person so desperate … one who believes the only out is the extinction of his own life? It could make Angels weep.

So for myself, I choose not to indulge and tempt fate; I just walk away. For me that decision is an easy one, being based on knowledge of self and an understanding of what life can be for a decision run amok. But what of all of those who are trapped in the world of spin, a veritable void of gambling — who is there to help them?

The governments of the world neither condone nor negate gambling; of course not — it is one of the single highest sources of tax revenue in the world, to the tune of billions of dollars worldwide. The human cost just doesn’t seem to outweigh the financial gains — why does this not surprise?

This attitude, from a position of government protectionism, is similar to the persepctive towards smoking; we all know that smoking is bad for us, and I’ve never met a smoker who didn’t constantly wish that he’d never picked up that first cigarette. The habit impacts a life in so many ways … Smokers are the current cultural pariahs, under constant assault on all fronts, and the most proffered question — “Well, if you know it’s so bad for you, why don’t you just quit?” – is so often asked with all intended smugness. What most don’t understand is what it takes to quit, but this is a topic for another day. My point here is that governments know smoking is bad on all levels — the health industry has been hacking at smoking-related misinformation for years – so if government officials know it’s so bad (how could they not?) and understand the ramifications, then why don’t they gut the business, burn the crops, and make smoking illegal?

Because it is also one of the biggest cash cows that the government has. Yes they make a big to-do over how much money spent on the treatment of lung disease caused by smoking, and the statement stands: get rid of the industry, get rid of the crops, and make it illegal. We  all know this is just not going to happen, they have gotten too fat off the taxes and they like it.

Gambling is a similar situation; the taxes derived from gambling fuel too many other aspects of government business, and let us be honest: government has never had a hard time front-loading cost through taxes onto the general population (Canada is the most heavily taxed country in the western world), so this is not exactly a big surprise. What offends me is when politicians jump on the wagon for tax reform (usually around election time), and when an election is over, such reform seems to disappear in form if not scope from their agendas. Is it any wonder at all that as the need for income increases and more people are put out of work, that gambling increases as people become more and more desperate to try “anything” to gain a financial foothold?

There are so many more things to say in regards to this situation, like maximums on betting by an individual in any given gambling establishment, and I may hear from individuals espousing their individual right to spend their money any way they see fit. Do we in fact lose more than we gain by putting “safeguards” in place to protect those who can’t or won’t protect themselves? Well, my fellow human beings, let me say this in closing. Government was originally created as a tool for protecting a society at large; laws were put in place that as well as protecting all of us en masse, were created for the weak to be protected from grievous harm at the hands of those of nefarious means; that should be all the protection that can be afforded. How many more families need be decimated; how many more seniors lose the ability to eat and house themselves?

This I believe is a point worth thinking on; for how long can we continue to turn our backs on those who have little recourse other than gambling as a way out of the have-not realm … and into the realm of financial ruin?

So easy, to lay the finger

of flesh … to flesh, and warmth

to stir the soul.

So easy to understand

need, to read  hunger

here to unfold.

A drop of oil, traced down

neck, on throat the finger

lingers … poised.

A story to be written here,

one that speaks of passion

in the dark, the velvet night.

One thinks of skin and moist

places that stir to be touched

and owned, of smooth places

yet traced.

A finger tip dance across supple

breast, and silken arms embrace,

a face stroked sweet with longing

eyes, and hunger is there.

Of lips, soft tongue and hot

breath, yearning of minutes

to stretch to hours, of missed

imaginings that disappear …

with only the faintest of memory.

With all thought focused, and touch

missed but not forgotten, her head

falls to pillow, lips part on an “Oh”,

and heard softly is “touch me”.

Glenn D. Clarke 11/09

Each moment ticks, falls

into the land of forgotten time.

There it lies, wishing for another

chance to become again.

This is the land of memories lost,

of past challenges, of the furtive 

adventure, youth gone … 

remembered in faint glimpses.

We are chained to the fleeting,

round, full, delicious moments

when youth had its way with the heart,

 all healed by a kiss.

Time changes,  moves on,

 becomes more of an old friend

than a constant adversary, one who

cushions the blow of finality with

a compassion of its own.

Time is constant, unwavering,

resolute in its search for the next

memory, the ticking never ceases.

Glenn D. Clarke  11/09

Am I blood and bone,

skin and muscle, or

water, stone

parchment and grit?

I ask because I am

no longer sure what

it is that makes me …

me.

Am I just a tool for the world,

or lesson in the making, or

do I have viability, and purpose,

more than just a sharp point

with a dull end.

Time seems to hold, be unsure,

yet it veers past, I’m left in

it’s wake, turning to vortex  and

taking me I know not where,

down, up, sideways …?

Am I still who I believed

myself to be, or a shade,

veiled from all who travel

this road I find myself

walking, I have never

been really sure.

Always have I been lone,

a spectator to the thrum,

the ever mental chronicler,

the gatherer of wonder,

now the shopkeeper of

memories.

Am I just to be, once here then …

gone, to have spent of life,

of love, of living and to

have garnered nothing but

the idea of a life lived … ?

Maybe in the end, all is revealed,

and then we know … what?

Glenn D. Clarke  10/09

The need is in me,

the need to be one

and two, for that is

what we are; two into one.

The need is to meld and

fold, to be in and of,

to warm and cool.

Meld and fold like steel

made stronger, be in and of

our world, our life, our choice,

to warm and cool so that

rash is not a word used

in our decisions in life.

I have a need to be clear,

my intentions focused,

my mind unclouded only in so

much as it keeps me aware

of us, and our beauty in all things.

I have a need to hold

you close, to feel our flesh 

as a glass of wine,

mellow and full.

The need is what drives

me to you, it always has,

and always will, for I am

the thirst, you my love

are the river of my life,

and I drink of you daily.

Glenn D. Clarke   October  2009

Once again she comes,

with artists flourish

the canvas fills once more

with hues of Fall.

The years go by, ever quickened

by time, true to its nature

it falters not, nor by a second

is the brush stroke delayed.

Yet do I wish for it to hesitate?

Not by said second, for it is a

comfort to know that the eye

will be treated once more,

that my senses shall be treated

once more.

 Her brush of golds and reds,

sweeps across the countryside,

all is turned to raucous tone,

intense,fragrant, the sound

of crackling leaves a reminder

of my youth.

Yes, the fragrance of those

leaves, as we rolled down and through

hills of them, not thinking

of the death of Summer,

but the birth of new fun.

Now I breath in and memories

do flood my mind, I think

of one day watching new memories

in a grandsons eye … being created,

thankful for the cycle.

Glenn D. Clarke  October / 2009

I feel the connection … shifting,

as if the bonds/fibres that hold me

here were somehow fraying.

I really can’t explain it totally,

it use to be so easy to

write it, but of late … what?

It’s as if  the fabric of my

existence is being torn from me …

like a blanket used to swaddle is

torn off leaving you cold … remote.

It started when you left,

I have never felt so all alone …

so bereft of connection,

this was the beginning.

Then, I started to think …

always my worst time; time

to think and feeling alone.

And then the cloud descends,

do you still know I love you,

can you feel the bond, the always

soul- teather that has always

joined us.

Will you still love, feel, know me

as always, or will that change …

be replaced by — what?

The timbre of us, the we of us …

will we survive, I have enough doubts

of me … to start doubting we

is unfathomable, and yet … there.

You seem so small now, frail

now, I fear breaking you

somehow, and it drives me

deeper and away.

I as always want to be the strength

I have always been … but now

don’t feel, help me, regain me please,

for I feel I have lost my way …

and your light is what I need,

so please shine.

Glenn D. Clarke / 09

We go through times in our life

that seem to large

for us to get a solid grip on.

It twists our reason,

unfolds our resolve,

screws with our sense of right and wrong,

pulling us from our focus.

You know in your heart

which way is the path,

and though it is fraught with difficulties,

the person who chooses this way

is the blessed one.

You are blessed for your strength,

your will, your sense of intention—

for it is your way.

In the end,

when all is said and done,

when you look in the mirror and truly see yourself,

know that what you see in your eyes is the true you,

the honest you, the necessary you,

and the words you speak are

“I am present in this world, I matter in this time,

 and I live in this now – I will survive.”

Glenn Clarke/ 2009

We fall,

entwined in our

submersion, now

wrapped in sea and

want, need and desire,

warm and coddled we

move deeper.

I breath through you,

you are limitless

in depth, an ocean within

yourself, I flow through you

as a river, surgeing onward,

drawing from you, filling you all

at once.

We roll, tumble

surface, draw in air only

to sink again, arms wrapped

fervently, again

I am drawn to life and exploding,

joy erupting from every cell,

knowing you so

intensely … deeply moved

by the knowledge

you have of me.

We burst the surface

still entwined, now just holding,

the seawater about us as a

birthsack holding us safe,

feeding us warmth,

feeling we are born out

of each other and back into this world,

a singular entity, two hearts,

two minds,

one soul.

Glenn D. Clarke/09