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