Categories
Poetry Thirsty Thursday

Thirsty Thursday | How shall I fall in love with you?

written in 2013


Entice me with your words
pierce my walls with meanness
show me you have the power to break another person
yet you refuse.

Show me you have the willpower to stand up 
and alone
have the ability to open your door
welcome a stranger
and trust they will not throttle you in your sleep.

Tease me with kisses and polite dialogue,
an intercouse of exchanged language
with kind innuendo but no
biting sting of
regretted words.

Demonstrate your strength
not in feats of power
but in exploits of courage,
the deed which you complete though 
you know you’re licked before you start,
see it through.

Toss your speech with abandon
but not your ideas – 
your ideals are by your heart
and you live not beside them
but by virtue of them
unto others
though they do not the same.

A vital man with an Achilles heel
I in turn choose not to sever,
a choice my own — as all my acts
are of my own volition.

For I have power too.
As you penetrate, I consume.
As you guffaw, I may also laugh.
As you devastate, I ruin.
As you toy, I play.
As you adore, I love.
I am passionate, above all else.

Prove you have a compulsion for life,
you choose endurance over death,
you have potential to be a
raft for those without
water-wings,
for my exigency for life
is almost extinguished.

Demonstrate a lust for adventure
that is comparable to my own
so we can rid ourselves 
of this boredom, tedium,
this dullness, together.

You are a collaborator,
a fellow conspirator and colleague,
a fellow traveller on this quest,
upfront and honest,
sparing only of the sensitivity of others,
unless for a private laugh —

For laughter is god above all —
the ability to laugh at good and bad,
strong and weak,
not others, but ourselves,
in the dark and in the light,
a reason to go forth,
and conquer 
not all,
but love.

Categories
Poetry

Strings Attached

You can wish and
you can pray
you can hope for
a brighter day
you’ll see the gate to freedom
and you’ll always get halfway

but none of your wishes
will come true
you’ll never be
a real boy
until the strings 
they pull are taken ‘way

You may have skin
and you can dance
and once I think 
you crapped your pants
yet a puppet you will stay

until your strings 
are old and gray
you will remain
their easy prey
you’ll never wander
you’ll never stray
you’ll never wonder
you’ll never play

You’ll never be
a real boy

Categories
Good Fortune Philosophy Poetry

Mission Accomplished

I’m done with wishy-washy
done with undecided

Finished with fools
I’m ditching unreliables

I’m done with second chances
done with forgiving

Prove yourself now or get
on with your living

I can’t deal with backwash
won’t swallow minced words

I’m tired of dream fluff
save that bullshit for birds

You were spineless and weak
a watered down turd

No more namby-pamby
get gone from my life

I’m holding out for a hero
who’s holding out for me, wife

Your fickle vacillation
nearly drove me insane

And worse, you blame me,
as if I changed my name

I’m done with remembering
I just don’t have the time

You were too wishy-washy
Now thank god you’re not mine


Categories
Buddhism Poetry

A Wish

I will never convince you
I have abandoned my madness
As long as you are shrouded in yours

You will not, cannot see
past your veil of ignorance
to what I’ve now become

But every day, with purest love
I wish only everlasting peace
and happiness upon you


Categories
Poetry

Eroded Out

Do not feel special because
I felt you so deeply —
I’m an artist

This morning, I wept for
a fallen tree, I had fallen for
over these summer months

Now it lays stretched, dead
over the creek bed, highest branches
brushing forest floor
ground eroded out from underneath
the roots

The artist’s curse is attachment
masked as lust, even love
but the object isn’t special just because
it’s the perception, the artist’s deception
that gives rise to conception

We may have loved this thing before
and here we are losing it, once more

Don’t be fooled

To be felt deeply
is no honour, because
an artist is a slut for feeling

And now you’re just a bore


Categories
Philosophy Poetry

Karma v. Equanimity

How can one help but try and remember
Even ask curiously
Who is this and how do I know them from a past life
As I indirectly feed them or compete for
attention or laughter or share an earnest
word on institutional experience
I cannot help but question
How do I know you?
Did we eat at the same table?
Drink from the same cup?
Have I sensually stroked your arm?
Did you birth me from your womb?
Push me on the swing?
So many lives lived unremembered
Remarkable though they seemed
At the time

Gone. Gone from my grasp.
Yet feelings of familiarty arise
At each and every word exchanged
The touches given, stopped
So weird that you could linger
Like an unfounded memory
Yet I know within my heart
That appearance reflects karma
Though unfolded memory remains
Tucked away for enlightened eyes only
A privilege reserved for tenth dimension beings
And here we are struggling in 3D appearance
I don’t hear you in my dreams
No we weren’t that close so recently
But previous lives are infinite
Circular I like to believe
So we’ve had…how many?

Now you stand before me
Like you’ve never known me
But you bear the name I’ve heard before
Under steepled roof, through Christian door
I strive for patience, not to deplore
A despicable name I don’t care for
You aren’t the same though it would appear that way
And de ja vu is pretty peculiar
So the dream I know is a dream getting weirder
As if it’s possible it could be stranger
But that is one thing you’re definitely not
As you avoid my gaze it’s clear
You’ll never shoot your shot and
I think about the shit lot it sometimes
seems I got – gave myself? – a dream with
Suspicious people in my midst
Horrid roommates taking the piss
Out of my very livelihood – what a ride
My karma has given me, so I turn
To the cause, asking
“What has given rise to thee?
What led this John Doe here to me?
What action have a I done or refused
That left this jackoff rather bruised?”

Better perhaps to question
How do I right the wrongs
That led to these damned impressions?
How do I purify the karma in the way
Of the mind that holds steadfastly
Virtuous equanimity, a warm feeling
And friendly attitude to each living being?
That is peace and happiness to me.

Categories
Poetry Saturday Expressions

Lost harvest | Session 10

The fruit on our vine has withered
        I long to cut it down, but something stops me

I feel you lurking, breathing on my neck,
  wishing I hated that 
    now unpleasant sensation

You keep appearing to me as a vision
          at my window, at work,
across the road, getting gas or 
                                      exploring knee-high weeds,
                             observing afternoon-hot walls

Summer stinks of memories, snorkeling,
     the big bug ID book, hidden peacocked notes

Hot days soothed with cold water and
         indulgences rare opportunities afford

Not appreciated and never found again

I couldn’t stand to be with you now,
   experiencing anew the arrows of your delusions

So why do I crave you at all? Am I so plagued with
                       inappropriate attention and my own maras?

Cutting the wizened fruit, so something
                  new can grow, still seems undoable

With a heart full of love, wishing for non-
                     attachment, I observe

You’re hard to let go.


Categories
Poetry Thirsty Thursday

Thirsty Thursday | The Heat

Is only intolerable in the city

In the country it is relished
Under the shade of friends
Oak, sycamore and cedar

(If only I could be near her)

The heat
Is only intolerable
In the skyscraped city

Though sometimes pretty
Reflecting sunlight and cloud
Against brilliant glass backdrops

The perfect selfie studio
Good cell reception
Radiating from magnetic towers

(I still smell her flowers)

In the forest it is relished,
And we see life grow,
Hiking through heavy fragrance
                      just hanging
                                          in the air
Without a care, afternoons
                                          permeated with water breaks
        we didn’t all die from
   the heat
                                          but there were other dangers

(The loss is difficult to bear)

The heat is
                 only intolerable
                                           in the city

Where it clings to and delivers
Dumpster smells, sidewalk-fried vomit
Makes that much more objectionable
The masturbation in the subway
And the skin-pressed embrace of the public transit stranger
                                                                        or do we see that anymore?

It has us hidden away in homes,
And air conditioned cafes
Appearing separate and unhappy
though we suffer sweaty swamp-ass
just the same – begging for marketers
to quench our summer-thirst,
                          cool?

(Missing mindfulness, I am the fool)

By the lakeside, the heat is relished
Finally the sun forgives bathers,
Bestowing hot sand and tanlines, 
Quick dry towels and the joy of popsicles
Everything cold is that much more enjoyed,
Pleasure derived from sticky drippings
Freezies, creamsicles, ice cream cones – 
Eleven dollar lemonade is for the city-sufferers

(Again, I would suffer her)

The heat is only intolerable in the city
without natural escape
Less those that die, burdened by
The thick, hot weight of smoggy air
Suffocating dwellers here
Folks willing to pay anything for different external conditions
Desperate to escape
                 to another’s arms, bearing summer’s dawn
    to a heat that’s loved, cherished in evening’s temperate shadow
                                               cast long over the fire pit,       as memories
                                    toasting marshmallows late into the night
Sleeping under the stars, 
                                waking in the dew

(A fire still burns for you)


A little playlist for when life gets too hot and hard to bear
Categories
Philosophy Poetry

Close Only Counts

Close doesn’t cut it
for a swing and a miss
a near hit can’t
bring the runner home

Close doesn’t count
t’ward an orange flagged fall
a slipped push kick never
nets the ball, missed point

Just out of bounds, nearly there
it’s not – kind of like a heart attack
without the big ol’ clot

A close call, one number off
never got the message ‘cross

A close shave, still breathing now,
never put me in the grave

They say, close only matters in
horseshoes and hand grenades

guess that’s why it’s easier today
to be okay with how it’s shaken out
now I see, certainly in matters of
the heart, close really
doesn’t count

Categories
Buddhism Monday Motivation Poetry

What ho!

I am utterly transformed
I can never again see with false eyes
I have abandoned many fears

Never again can I commit tyranny
unable to slay a foe without mercy
still a warrior, dedicated practiced

Once, my armor gleamed in the sun
now, it is bloodstained, tarnished with use
a hero’s pay is his next adventure

As I sit atop the lower falls, and
waking dream what now I see
remembering how this came to be

Observe not one, but many parts
not one singularity exists,
trunks turn out branches bearing leaves
which nestle insects or yield to mites
though some call it chaos mistakenly

I now see the forest for the trees
fragmented phenomena, often
incorrectly imputed as one object

How can it exist but in name?
Dependent relationships
making us dependent people,
striving for independence from
everyone but our own false self

Not anymore

Now when I feel autumn stretch her
roots into August mornings, shrinking daylight
when I feel her come in on the breeze
I know the tears that fall are but
impressions of the misdeeds long past done
just re-emerging memories unsettled in
summer’s dry heat, like dust

Now, clarity.


Lower Falls