POETRY JAM

What I like about writing poetry is that I can completely surrender to the muse.  I don't have to search for pretty words, try to please anyone, make corrections that don't please my heart.  It's just the muse, myself, and the page I satisfy.  Poetry stands somewhere between the songs of angels and vomit.

 

BABA'S SONG

I scooted myself up against his back
Then I wrapped legs and arms around him.
That crimped, chiaroscuro hair graced along my cheek
And I drowned my eyes in it.
"I like that, do it more often" he said.

I dipped my tongue into his mouth,
Into his creases, anywhere I could find.
I coated his soft tummy with saliva, then licked it clean.
"You're a sweet kid" he said.

I opened my legs and "wider" he said and
Wider I opened until the creases ached.
Deep he went into me, deeply touching all the points that shivered.
"Good" he said. "I like that."

I moaned and made strange and loud guttural sounds,
Arching and bending, pushing my hips
Up towards his chin, up towards his head.
I lost myself in the joy, lost myself, lost myself.
"That's nice" he said.

I twisted and cried, screamed, and my eyes moved up
Towards his, meeting and seeing.
My skin stood clean and close,
My senses all spiraled towards him and he said
"I need some space, I need to think this over."

I extended more then I've ever known,
Given beyond, lost more, gained more,
Forgotten more, and subsided into the sensation.
So what will he say next?
What?

 

AN ODE TO SPELLCHECK

The words I right are never write

I mess them up in a syntax fight.

I cannot spell, my grammar sucks

The sentences linger on and run all over the place.

I truly am not certain

If Spellcheck pulled the curtain

On my mastery of English

Or age would have ruined it anyway.

But I surely think

Should we use pen and ink

A child of nine

Would do just fine but I wouldn’t.

So my gratitude to Spellcheck, that savior of the lapsed

It’s gone and saved my ass.

LIFE ON CEMETERY STREET                    Dec. 13, 1999

Since David died:

I’ve moved 3 times,

Sold so much stuff,

Stopped sailing,

Started meditating.

And so many damned up tears have flowed over.

Yet here three plus years later

He is no farther away:

Than the moment he let go of life,

He is no less close than even before.

Really, do people die?

Really, do they?

Really, I know they dump used bodies,

Ones too racked with pain and disease.

Really, though, do they die?

He promised he would haunt me.

Now, what did I think?

Drifting visions? 

Bumps in the night?

Visitations?

But instead he haunts me

By just not going away.

There is this constant presence/absence.

He’s not here, he is here

So confusing.

I am ransacking the universe for the reason

Why I have stayed behind.

Part of him is here,

Yet part of me is not here.

If the sun were shining,  I would be raking leaves.

Hope

It is not necessary to have hope.
Hope does not supply the moment with vitality.
insteads it bleeds the present of it's immediacy.
Attention is sloughed in the presence of hope.

What do you hope for? 
Is it for change?
Do you not know that change is all we have?
Here in a world devoid of the static, change will always happen.

What do you hope for?
Do you need to have the world be your way?
Is that the way of your friend, neighbor, all the other versions of you?
Whose way shall you choose to hope for?

Substitute vision for hope.
See what is.  Be clear here.
Sacrifice hope for the wisdom of the moment.
Replace hope with being,
just like this.



Love for the Dhamma

Like a sleepless faithful dog it follows you.

Every moment it offers you exactly what you need.

In moments of sorrow, joy, suffering, ecstasy

There is the Dhamma holding out

That exact instant as your sacred instructor.

If you fail to hear, it will be back for you.

Steadfast, it again brings you the lesson.

If you are aware in that teaching moment,

You will find love and gratitude without measure.

This constant companion is all you need

To continue your path and know you will be well.

psalm for the millennium

Lift me into the light, O Lord

Please hear my cry.

Centuries,  have I waited for your face.

Eons, have I missed the kind word.

Under the apple tree I sat,

Breathing fragrance of jasmine and love,

Eating of the joy/pain fruit.

Now I rush past the violent corner,

Flight fuel in my backyard,

Traffic on my street at 3:00 AM.

Bring me between, O Lord.

Between the ancient, bird fledged past

And the byte logged future.

Between the peasant yoke

And the yuppie scheduled present.

Between the earth’s too many

And the waters of too little.

I cry unto you, O Lord,

From a colorful but Godless age.

A plethora of amusements waits before me.

But none can satisfy.

My senses are drenched with the saturations

Of a thousand Burmese restaurants.

But my soul stays hungry,

Homeless and aching for the donut of Faith.

Now, I will sit, O Lord,

Waiting for the spark beyond what I see.

Waiting for the brightness that comes from within.

Knowing that my ears will hear your cadence.

Knowing that my feet will find your mountain.

Now, I will sit, O Lord,

Seeing only the colorforms that create before my eyes.

Seeing only the dull bamboo screen.

Feeling the numbness in my legs,

Feeling the ache in my neck.

Now, I will sit, O Lord,

Traveling nowhere, thinking of little,

Feeling lightly, seeing air,

Neither hungry nor wanting,

Neither seeking, nor wishing to find.

Now, I will sit, O Lord,

As Your Glory washes over me,

Content in the muchness of little,

Content in the wide space of enclosure.

Now, I will sit, O Lord,

Now, I will sit.

Now.

ELEGY FOR THE AQUARIAN AGE                          12-23-99

1.

Wellspring of the ancient mystic,

Longing light from the darkened cave,

Flow into the dawn with a new glow.

Brighten us, your lowly forms of slime.

The Dharma Dawn comes out of the unfettered brain.

Unhindered by thought or action, it bubbles.

Allow that upwelling, swelling fruit.

Let life find value from within.

Crawling, minute cells guide my every motion.

Unity is bound in links and bonds.

Moonlit frozen, there are no wastelands.

All is used to glorify the ant of creation.

Come let us sing of the future.

Let us build a new compassion.

Walls, ring with native chanting.

Floors, quake to the new pulse.

Through ancient jungles,

Across empty sand dunes,

Bred by ice and heat,

We slithered into this shape.

Here the abyss beacons us.

We pause to fear it’s heights.

Hold hands, three steps back,

Now -- four steps forward.

Off, off. 

Now where go we?

2.

Let us pause to feel our feet float on faith.

Wait, while this slurry of atoms reassembles.

Into the abyss of the next millennium,

On into the ordinary world, go we. The falling into reality.

Now hear us sing in group effort.

In union our cells ring with harmony.

The song is clear and known without thinking.

The song is mere reality.

One wish we have in this constant flux.

Continuation is what we crave,

Moving in constant change,

But constantly moving.

Bless the future.

Cheer for the present.

Cry for the past.

Now,  -- go in reverse.

From the egg bursts the Bhodisatva baby.

From the Lotus comes the future.

We are the petals of the Lotus.

All life flows from that nebulous center.

And all returns, (a throbbing noise.)

3.

Feet, feel on flat floor.

Nose, scent on quiet, cold air.

Ears, sounds of morning.

Hands, pen and paper.

THIS is the present.

The past and future are nothing.

#322

We throw our nets to the fishes of fate,

          and bait our lures with magic.

In our wake shall flow the fruit of friendship

          and the light of love.

The lust of our bodies shall succor the

          temperance of our souls.

We shall be the father of fresh notions

          and the mother of imagination.

TO A  HANDMADE BOWL

This bowl is all of Zen.

In the bowl there is nothing,

But the bowl is made of something.

The bowl is part of the earth,

But it is also filled with the sky.

This bowl is empty,

But it is also full.

It is simple, but look at it deeply

          and it is also a hollow cacophony of

          elements.

The bowl has a hard, colored coating

That masks it’s simpler beginnings.

The glaze is a shield from the knocks of time and misuse.

Eventually the bowl cracks,

          chips happen, and then it breaks.

It is assigned a place on the heap, forgotten.

When I am no longer a memory, these same atoms

          that make this bowl will have reformulated themselves

          Into a frog.

#52

Deep in the fetid night

With the ogre on the rise

And the dragonfire seething from cave center,

Lured from the warm softness of my bed

I stub to granite windows and stare.

Deep in the soft sensitive centers of me

The old pains come,

The loneliness, the sorrow and grief.

From the gut of me, the crying out middle,

Need mingles itself with fear

And the thrashing of snakes and biting of spiders.

Deep in the bottomless lake

The mirror top not surrendering secrets,

Reflecting the sadness of faces,

Protecting the cold unknown depths.

Deep in the heart

Below all that’s painful,

Silent and still and waiting,

That content of the spirit

Where no loss touches.