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

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

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. 

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