I
I wake from a dream
sweat pools around me
although
just moments ago
I was cold
in
a basement… a … funhouse
with a tilted floor… and
I… crawled
in perpetual mental pain to a wall of mirrors
toe-to-ceiling, reflecting
back at me, a hundred
topsy-turvy, curvy
selves
not one I could identify as me
and yet all of them were
and were not so I turned
to run
and the reflective wall
appeared behind me – now in front
and I cried
loud enough to
startle myself back
to a reality
with a different feeling
later
now awake, I carry a mirror upstairs
on my back
like the cross
pretending I’m Christ
like I’ve made
any kind of
sacrifice
and compared to what?
I place the mirror
on the floor –
it’s taller than me
an expensive beauty
broken frame and all
and staring through the glass
seeing a version of
my hard eyes
I cannot help but recall
all the faults, the harm
I continue to perform,
as if addicted to
such impure actions,
as if, on a lower level, I believe
they’d bear the fruit
happiness
I know they won’t
they can’t
I reach out to touch
the other me,
as if she is outside my mind
and
maybe because the frame is broken
I transcend
II
My hand melts through the glass
as if it was water pooling,
gently falling
and re falling
I am still recalling
my regret, which melts into reliance
as the drink pours,
so slips away this
dirt, this grit, this sticky mind
that clings to labels like
victim and judge and unkind
stuck with thorny negativity
and unwell-wishes, murderous minds
diminished to the doom they
longed to cause –
I no longer seek
to plants those seeds
for I see they are
the very flaw in my design,
my own suffering mind,
now and in infinite future lives,
my pain
if I allow evil
to remain
I step through the frame
and my old world falls away
flipped upside down and landing
right side up, upon my feet
destined to meet each opponent
when applied correctly
so I may kill the weeds
in the garden of
happiness
by mere name, or magic,
I am handed impeccable causes
and a spade
of virtue, in a foggy field outside
under the lavender twilight ceiling
peppered with twinkle-
twinkle little stars
a voice descends from the
peri winkle night
and makes requests to me
to not
take this dream too seriously
then
oh! how! summer’s dawn
blossoms to a
halcyon day,
seasons that
quickly come are
faster to go,
oh! warning signs
cannot prevent karma’s ripening
only remind us,
now! appreciate … ah! still –
winter’s here without delay
(no one believed me)
hardly harvest rose and went
well, I’ll still learn from cyclical existence
(until I, too, forget
it should happen soon – as I )
at least enjoy the present,
this moment, now
before
I feel it fade away
(if I only I could
remember it somehow)
time has passed… how much?
we cannot say as history’s been changed
and I’ve been trapped
prompted to play
in the dirt
burying effort
for another day
I could beg for pleasure
but it’s a little late
as I fully believe
my senses
feeling as the soil dampens
my now-dirty hands,
still neatly folded
dividing dirt,
I’ve become the spade
just a tool
in somebody else’s arsenal
so indeed, on knees, I pray
this meat body remain
only long enough
to attain
swiftest enlightenment
in this life
(not too much to ask
with a Bodhisattva mind –
if only I could be
that mind and see the emptiness
of me!)
for the suffering of many is great
and I am but one
one who can transform
the greatest suffering
and the
the happiest temporary mind
so let me be of use!
let my grip loose on the solid self
let me see the impermanence of man
bathed in sorrow, in such sadness
as if he never had a plan
(you know who you are)
an appearance, a specter
the impermanence of all phenomena
I see this as I sew the seeds
I never asked to receive –
but I’m certainly not discarding
until at least I’ve tried!
damn the fact I’ve never had
a green thumb –
that’s what friends are for
It never occurs to me to
go back through the mirror
now my attention has
got a new mission
and my senses tell me
this is my reality
I rinse myself
under water that falls from a tap
I call mine
walking with legs
I hate
but that I call mine
living a life I hate
but I call mine
it doesn’t occur to me to let go
so I garden
and I don’t let go
I was given a chance
and I didn’t let go
I waited to be awoken
instead of waking others
and I didn’t let go
I insisted
that I tried
but I just tried to make it real
and the dream could not be made real
because –
compared to what?
I probably should have let go
I listen, mistakenly,
to samsara’s music
touching my reflection
and wondering
can I go through the mirror
again?
why try at all?
what do I think I’ll find
outside the prism of my
silly,
silly
mind?
The Halfwit Writer 