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/