Monday, November 22, 2021

like lightning on water


"history, too, is a simple machine"   -- Steve Brightman

 

like lightning on water

grace brought the first living organism

 

the Triune God -

Frankenstein, Passion, Darwin

 

moist dirt rises through eons

spits out humans

crafts of them Buddhas

 

we sit somewhere in the balance

not believing this possible

that the stench of iniquity

could give rise to beautiful flowers

each of us, a lotus turning 

in the hand of self-effacing time


Saturday, November 20, 2021

melt me

 

not to disappear
not to be invisible
or cease to exist
of suffer like this

melt me
master monkey man
open my heart
as you open
and empty
my four hands

this is November


early evening sprawls before us
this is November
indoors and further in
reading and guessing at heart's depth
outside, the darkness is light as well
I remind myself
anything that gives secret joy
is lit from within
and love is a light, too
I see it, and in it
see you

Saturday, October 30, 2021

just sitting


just sitting with
who you are
as you are
constant mountain 
movement, distant 
brother star
toss of coin 
into golden 
sun pool
placate timid tiger
with song of 
being you

all I know

  

all I know
there's more to see
all I am
there's less to be

open heart
open door
wind and star
tell me more




Thursday, October 28, 2021

in our hearts


some may deny

they are good inside

or that pain is there

-- in our hearts, both reside

 

"I hurt; I am good"

two grand admissions

when taking a look

hold them both in cognizance

 

how can that be?

don't they cancel each other?

yet bright as plain day

we are grand and we suffer

 

create equal space

for sacredness and affliction 

for wonder and awe

at life's truths conflicting


Monday, September 20, 2021

grotto of St. Dymphna


(actually likenesses show her pretty happy; she is matron saint of the mentally ill...)

 

weeds neglected

dirt smeared on concrete molding

smudges of blood mixed in

no one can guess their source

the question lost to the failing faith

of the previous century

 

the image, hunched, recoiling

as if from a gaggle of marauding geese

as if life itself had become a burden

air and the sun, curses, crosses

 

on her face

a fleck of an impish grin

breaking through an awful grimace

an ounce of grace

rained on her perpetually-breaking heart

Saturday, September 4, 2021

on Exercise: Finding the Feeling, by Pema Chodron


the feeling of

being in Mom's hospital room

as I draw and write

sitting by the side of her bed

 

Ani Pema instructs,

Bring up a memory

What does it feel like?

 

like ice water

a pool rich with grief

hovering below my heart

above my belly

 

I look up, distracted

a single cloud peers out

over the top of the building across the street

 

I am not unhappy

I am just sad


Monday, August 23, 2021

writing


what is this "writing"?
it is just that --
one letter following another

meaning seems to have
escaped me
not that I meant something
in the first place

chickens squawk
the farmer's axe

Monday, August 9, 2021

maybe 2

 on maybe afternoons

the sun lights every possible path

could be this, could be that

good and/or bad

I'm down for the infamy

up for the epiphany

this could be erroneous math

I'm making my predictions

based on phantom predilections 

Monday, August 2, 2021

Amelie (the Cleveland theater production)


the nearness of a father

and of a mother

compromised

for fear of illness

(closeness)

control and isolation

(the beat of her heart

suppressed)

 

father touches her

once a month, when he

a doctor

takes her vitals

 

mother teaches her

at home

Zeno's Paradox

-- as you approach your goal

   you will reach half the distance

   and continue to reach

   only half, and half again

   never quite arriving at it

 

Amelie, an enigma

a warm soul

in a straitjacket

can touch anyone

gladden their heart

but lets no one

touch her

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Gospel of Marc



This place is too public for an execution
They'll do it in closed board rooms
With pie charts and power points

The one they cannot reach through crucifixion
With a moist finger to the wind, testing ghost flight patterns
The one who takes off in t minus 10
Of edible grace, invisible friend

Has chosen the time of his own expiration
Not by scripture or tarot or revelation
The button down turncoats and Judas kings
They'll make their big move
He'll be pulling their strings

none but One

 

toward a greater understanding
of misunderstanding
bless the beasts and brutes
Alpha males and sentient snoots
snails sliming to nirvana
backwards, around the globe

I just wanna 
embrace the disgrace
heal the heel
uncover the selfish lover
scrutinize and tenderize 
the emergence of hatred 
in my own blessed, little heart

skip

 

lost a skip
of a beat of my heart
defeated once I won
the world caved in
crust enclosing my body
expectations, beliefs, desires
assumptions imploding
there is no consoling
the hole I am holding

and a flicker of light
at the side of my eye
draws my breath back in
I might lose everything
and still sit here
watching the breath
wash over the fear

too soon

 

dawn came too soon
the dark night of my soul
was such sweet rending

heart alien
to everything living

I longed for you
though I did not know
if you existed

I died for you
grand aesthetic principle
glorious idea

Monday, July 19, 2021

that you may be well


that you may be well
and all manner of beings
be relieved their suffering
I have renounced renouncing
taken up coffee
and poetry
listening closely
to the articles of evidence
of our emerging humanity


the worry


the worry is not in your head
it is in the wormlike creature
struggling on the window pane
that fights to unfold itself
revealing, not a worm
but a firefly

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Jonetta and the Man with a Sun for His Head

In the dream, a man with a head as bright as the sun walks the streets aimlessly. His light is not intelligence or a warm radiance, but a sick emanation, an ego shine. The man is me.

The scene shifts.  I lie in a dark hospital room. A tiny woman, with hair closely cropped to her head, is whispering to me.

I am touched by what she is saying; the sickness of ego is no longer blazing.  A tiny light goes off in my heart. I am freed, enlivened by a tender feeling.

 

I have this dream during a stay at a psych ward.  When I wake up, I reason, “I have an ego, yes, but is it really all that big?” 

One evening, later in the stay, I have a panic attack. I struggle until bedtime to keep myself together. I am extremely happy when I can get to bed and just focus on my breathing.

I wake up early the next morning. Something has occurred to me. I have been full of myself, and the panic attacks I have are my body’s way of taking me down a few pegs – I may be book smart, but can’t even rely on the integrity of my own mind on a day to day basis.

I stumble out of my bedroom, take a shower. On the way back to my room, a young woman, Jonetta, stops me. No one pays her much mind – she seems to always be stumbling around, clamoring for attention, with her froggy whisper that none of the nurses or patients can ever make out.

She is really keen on telling me something. I lean in close so I could hear.

“The medicine makes me so sleepy,” she croaks, “I can hardly talk. They need to lower my medication.”

I repeat this back to her, and her eyes light up. “Yes! Yes! No one will listen to me.”

I realize, Jonetta is the woman from the dream.

I relay to one of the (nicer) nurses what Jonetta had told me, but the nurse is dismissive. She says that I don’t know what Jonetta is there for, and I am not a doctor – I couldn’t know what she needs.

Thus, I have learned a little bit more about the helplessness of the psychiatric patient “in the system”. But I have learned more about myself, and I have made a new friend. 


Saturday, July 10, 2021

attached to the cup (paraphrasing Hindu teaching story)

you are attached to the cup
that brings you water
this is your mistake

throw away the cup, look up
you are on the shore
of a freshwater lake

Monday, June 28, 2021

I believe in disco


I believe in disco, I do

now

 

I have heard the very best 

here at Starbucks tonight

#1 singles from the 70's, 

strung one behind the other

 

"Freak Out"

"Boogie Wonderland"

“Funky Town”

and this one whose words 

I could never make out

"I love the night life

I love to boogie

on the disco roooouuunnnd, 

balayang!"

 

dumb stuff

starfloss of morons, you say

and didn't Chic almost make it

into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

travesty!

 

but I do believe in disco

I do now

 

they used to dance, you see

beneath a shattered star

in another time

in another world

light, like a thousand fireflies in formation

circling, dazzling, dizzying them

 

and how we might long for that mindlessness

that sexual abandon

high on mixed drinks and cocaine

they ushered in the 80's

the stupid 80's, all Reagan and spandex and big hair

what could we know of their sweat,

its odor wafting through too much perfume, cologne?

 

but I know

I have smelled it

and I believe

I do now

I believe in disco


this is how it works (true story)

 

I stand stopped on the bridge

from Old River to where I live

bothered by the diatribe in my head

an argument, political

leveled at a statement

made by a dear, dear friend

a year ago

 

I have gone too far

frustration pitch

for a woman I have never argued with

in person

never had reason to

don't have now

 

I stare through the metal bridge fence

at the river, the trees below

at nothing

at my own horror

at myself

 

turn toward the street

 

meet the laughing gaze of a girl, waving madly

out the back window of an SUV

her smile, breaking her face with light

she is waving at me

 

this is how it works

 

I smile, feel the weight of my frown

everpresent these days

lift, a droplet of grace

worn through my rhino’s hide

to moisten

a long-parched heart


Impossible


"It is impossible!"
the waiter tells Natalie Goldberg
...dessert -- after the kitchen has closed?

No way, her mortified, Japanese friend thinks
slinks after Natalie and the waiter into the kitchen
to see the playful imp, writing teacher of writing teachers
confront the chef -- Yes? for us? dessert?

        and it is impossible, this life, love
        sanity, sobriety
        these could never happen
        for me

the chef relents
she is too cute, this impudent American

       and I feel a breakwall breached in my heart
       the ocean of dreams threatens  to flood reality
       for me, for you
       for all beings and non-beings
       for the countless Buddhas
       for the thus-come bums
       for everyone


Wednesday, May 26, 2021

first of birds


first of birds
great flops, I hear
skittish, smacking trees
unbelievable buffoons

when the wind was not right
they would be lost in the clouds
frail fluffs of flight
forgotten, lost

lost, it would seem, like the dinosaurs
or the Atlanteans
the never-again and the never-was

but they found their way, at last
through the multi-hued skies
through multifarious forms

raised one wing at the right time
parried with the other
lovely darts 
propelled up through
the alleyways of history
up through
to the present age
to the trees and streets
woods and rooftops 
those ever-saints 
and sometimes-thieves

Friday, May 14, 2021

born

 

born in blue blanket fuzz comfort
castle palace home hoisted on steel girders over gold mine
trolls digging deep but never set filthy feet
on suburban streets

white as peach tree fruit
for this life to taste devour rape

home is a long way from Kansas now
swirls whirl down dark dank side of danger
cage I create and make sanitary with prayer
can't lie down for fear of falling into another lie

I would return in an instant to the solid mass of plastic heaven
if clarity wasn't so obvious, so sweet, so damn insistent

Thursday, May 13, 2021

by rote


token emotion

feel by rote
for ones who suffer

always my M.O.
quasi-authentic

here, in the epiphany of agony
heart wrenched
by your emasculation

I know a new feeling
a weeping and fretting
for all the hurt in the world

Untitled (link to poem at 3 Quarks Daily)

Thanks to Jim Culleny, poetry editor at 3QD, for posting this!


https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/05/thursday-poem-267.html

 

Monday, April 12, 2021

here

 

the great imploding world view
cascading light particles
you count them
1...2...                    here's another!
3.    three particles of light
and you are full

the aggregates of mind
the foundational delusions of ego
crammed in a space
the size of a baby raccoon
your brain feels so light
as light as your conscience
your pineal gland secretes
primps before its blazing mirror

I have found you
this is no illusion

we breathe, 
therefore
we're here