Donald Traxler's Poetry

Sunday, September 18, 2022

Seventy-nine point Nine Eight Years

Saturday, September 17, 2022

At the Threshold of Eighty Years

Thursday, September 15, 2022

הגוף הזה הוא רק רכב

לדרך אין סוף

Tämä keho on vain ajoneuvo.

Tiellä ei ole loppua.

דעם גוף איז בלויז אַ פאָרמיטל

דער וועג האט קיין סוף

ᎯᎠ ᎠᏰᎸ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎤᏩᏌ ᎠᏦᏙᏗ.

ᏅᏃᎯ Ꮭ ᎤᎭᏎ ᎤᎵᏍᏛᏁ.

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

The photo above was shot in NYC on September 11, 2022 (last Sunday). Apart from being a historically fateful day, that was twelve days before my eightieth birthday. Sandy and I were in NY for the US Open (tennis tournament).

Lately I've been interested in documenting the aging process, which I mostly do photographically, using myself as a model. This trip, though, gave us another way to assess and document it. We had made the same tennis pilgrimage thirteen years earlier, in 2009, but all the way from California instead of from Florida. This time it was far, far harder.

But we survived. Aside from fabulous tennis, we had fine dinners, excellent visits with friends, and we saw a wonderful play. We are glad that we did it, and grateful that we were able to do it.

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

The Truth that You Seek

The truth that you seek, find, and know

is the one that will set you free.

The truth that you reject

is the one that will keep you in bondage.

Saturday, August 27, 2022

Which One Is the Real Me?

The other day I was playing around on Google, looking myself up. I learned some interesting things. Several sites have been re-posting my work, which is fine with me, as long as they give me credit. But what I enjoyed most were the images. If I searched for my name plus "writer" or "translator," I got one type of result; quite a different one if I searched for my name plus "#nsfw," or "udugi." Here are some examples, to show you what I mean:

Now, I am not what they call in Spanish a "corbata" (a "necktie guy," generally equated with being a "stuffed shirt"). The pic at top left was shot by Sandy in 2010, as an author pic for Inner Traditions. I do not believe I have worn a necktie since that day, but it was the desired image at the time. I was interested to see that Google found book-cover shots put out by Simon and Schuster, who have taken over the marketing of those titles. My sister Patricia, who knows far more about book publishing than I do, tells me that that is a big deal.

If you visited me on any given day, the black-and-white profile pic would fit me a lot better.

Next, I searched for my name plus "#nsfw," and got the results that I like best, the ones I consider most significant. Here, I've played with those results a bit:

Now we're talking! I relate much better to this guy.

I got another nice result when I searched for my name plus "udugi." Again, I relate well to the images:

I think we know which one is the real me. What I can't figure out is how my cat's rear end got into these these pictures.