Step back
Take a breath
Open your heart
Put down your phone
Category: Poetry
Categories
grateful lament
I cannot complain when I know the cause
I cannot point finger as I’m to blame
there’s no why me with the reasons clear
beyond this time and place and name
I’ve been a stupid man countless times over
I’ve been a dumb boy, many times round
I’ve appeared the greater sex and his enjoyments
now I suffer for all his fun found
Now I’m cursed with monthly lashings
poisoned body and mind, inside and out
miserable in cycles uncontrollable
happy with confidence, then mean and full of doubt
Yet to my male lives I am indebted
for I still stand here, blessed and rare
female and peaceful, lacking will to war
while unattached for others I care
Though I live in pain’s dull embrace
thanks to the men in mirrors faced
Bernhard, Kafka, Thoreau, all others
they laid the plans, now I’ll escape
Having met Dharma in this lifetime
is my pure and saving grace
with faith and steadfastness I practice
to make some meaning of this place
Poetry is the answer to the question, how can words become art? Or, how can art be made of words?
Poetry is an answer to the soul’s calling. What is the soul calling for? The soul calls for meaning and meaning can only be found beyond words. But words become a vehicle to deliver the path and the path is symbolic.
Poetry is the answer to the overwhelm of emotion. The overflow of feeling is transferred metaphysically from a mental place to a physical form which can be shared and understood throughout time and space.
Poetry is the answer to the question, what is magic? Who is the muse? Where is love? How can we be free?
Poetry releases me.
Categories
Season of Sticky Sweet
How could I forget the taste
of peanut butter and honey
with sliced banana, open-faced
a delightful sandwich, toasted, plain
another sign spring has arrived
the cravings change when March is come
now savouring thick-spread-stuck tongue
quite pleasant and filling, nutty delight
cheap and easy with purse strings tight
indulging breakfast, lunch and dinner
this woman’s sandwich is the winner
one also recognizes the time of year
in the twitterpated words they hear
the birds still dressed in clothes austere
mourning dove then robin, now killdeer
all sing the song that spring has sprung
while I enjoy my buttered tongue
(Alternative title: Restless)
I’ll know spring is here
by the white-petalled flowers
like hiked high-waisted skirts
adorning leaf-green pelvises
emerging from a brown carpet of decay
leaves drained of their autumn exuberance
lazily revealing themselves
after winter’s white-blanketed sleep
then pushed aside without a peep
as through the beige come greener things
a trillium stalk and spotted trout lily
herb Robert and Virginia waterleaf
Virginia springbeauty and black raspberry
early blue cohosh and early meadow-rue
cut-leaved toothwort and my favourite, bloodroot
I’ll stop to pluck it from its orange tether
and snap the stem, a once small shoot
although it’s taken few weeks to grow
I rip it open and watch blood flow
this garish red unfit for skin
I smear on my wrists, as out, within
this little plant aglow with life
now bleeds as though clean cut by knife
and withering, dying in my hand
I toss it back to woods, to land
and with it, give a piece of me
a forest, springtime offering
a special elemental promise
thank you for appearing five
space, earth, water, wind and fire
in this time and in this wood
I’ll appear emptiness as I should
and until this winter fades away
with flowers in my mind, I’ll play
What do you want?
I mean, honestly, hun –
can you give me a straight answer?
Can you admit yourself one?
You lurk, you stalk, you play,
you wish, you pray, you prey,
you feast your eyes on words
and dwell on ones you’ll never say
You start and then you stop
you rush in and you pull out
you dance around the subject
clearly consumed with pointless doubt
You lack a vestige of courage
you lack a vehicle for change
your shoes are worn down
your soles soggy with rain
You gave up too early
you found nearby bed
you used her wet hole
to distract your sick head
I’m sad for your heart
I’m sad for your soul
you don’t understand the mind
so you grasp, run, let go
You say “no contradiction”
and you call it the truth
but what’s that in practice?
you’re as naive now as in youth
I can say what you need
and how you’ll disappoint
but I really don’t care
after I’ve had half a joint
What keeps me up thinking
is the very subtle mind
inseparable from any other
your thoughts are easy to find
They flatten then bristle
they swing and they miss
they wish I’d disappear
then they thirst for a kiss
How you long to control them
and how you know there’s a way
but you refuse to believe it
holding hungry dismay
You’ve been bruised, ego-beaten
dashed down and ignored
you’ve been neglected, abused
now you pretend to be bored
Why not free your desire?
there’s no way heart burns out!
If your motive is kind
and you trash your false doubt
Why not shine so brightly
and offer your gift?
Unless you’re a liar
and your stories are thrift!
I’ve insatiable curiosity
that somehow finds the low
and hearing their sad stories
know there’s lower to go
Out of horror and love
and my growing compassion
my heart moves my mind
so this body takes action
I would never wait for one
when there are countless suffering
I get rid of selfish motivation
as my bodhichitta is developing
It’s been a long winter
I thought I’d run out of words
but the channeling won’t stop
your imagination’s absurd!
I’ve been poked and prodded
and nearly choked out
I’ve swelling in tendons
I’ve been hit below belt
There’s a demon in my window
as my gargoyle stands watch
but no fearing nor loathing
could upset this game of hopscotch
I’m winning, ever winning
ever happy, despite sad
ever dancing around obstacle
ever grinning, being mad
If you’ve been here a while
you’ll already know
I made firm decision
a long, long time ago
I’m not wishy-washy
I’m not subtle, nor vague
I’m taming the wildest mind
treating delusions as plague
You don’t know the evil
I’ve birthed and I’ve held
with which I would harm
without three poisons dispelled
But with pure moral discipline
there’s no panic, no lack
I have all the conditions
and mindfulness my back
In dependence upon Three
I’ll never give up
and in defence against you
I’m staying #PrayedUp
Categories
Wishfulfilling Jewel
The light bursts in
no longer through cracks
nor broken halves,
nor through torn seams
I am not split apart
nor wrenched open
I am not a fractured heart
nor a container for shattered dreams
This lightness spreads outward
and cleaves between subtle thoughts
mere names, perverse, obscene
erased in emptiness supreme
this clear illumination beams into
and through and out and from within
from under and around and beyond
a profundity incomprehensible
to all minds but the purified subtle mind
now obscured, but I am sensible
so I ride these blessed feelings
as a stable mount –
temporarily lucky for having found
such conditions and pure instructions
both needed to walk on spiritual ground
The path is paved with golden words
that have prevented me from going astray
I shall not stay another day
where life’s absurd –
although it might not appear that way –
I am mixed entirely with this clear light
no body, no conceptions
just a relaxed subtle mind
loving, compassionate, universally so abundant with a wealth
most do not know
and when I cry, my tears are gold
for with wisdom, before I’m old
great compassion arises, and with love unfolds
with bodhichitta, I am fearless, bold
I can’t explode at the seams
I am seamless, spacious, bright
I am vast, clear, light and airy
I would not take you in a fight
I yield victory to my opponents
being happy over right
Do not be blinded
nor be frightened
I am bursting, radiant, true
with bodhichitta motivation
I appear to sit and suffer with you
join me in meditation
I’ll touch you with my mind
we’ll both gain understanding
and leave this damned world behind
Categories
The Five Aggregates
Form is empty
Like your tongue, your touch, your taste,
the sound of your voice, your scent in space
and in your impermanence, I’ve found
you’ve an addictive quality not soon replaced
appearing muscular, solid – yet not
and, dependent on past patience, quite hot
so when I reach out to grasp, to touch
my mind makes the form I crave so much
Feeling is empty
But dependent upon your appearance
and in dependence upon mine
I have felt this drunken romance
of two dumb hearts entwined
empty of inherent existence
our feelings grew and grew
now in dependence upon your kindness
I feel my heart in you
Discrimination is empty
To tell this from that
seemed rather straightforward
until our limbs were encumbered
with slick sweat and fatigue
and from under, lungs that heaved
and pressed two chests together
so one could not begin nor end
and certainly neither leave
a body that neither of us owns
made two bodies pleased
Compositional Factors are empty
Appropriated aggregates which function
to cause us suffering from our side
for from this contaminated root
grows our self-grasping apprehending I
and then come the branches of delusions
sprouting their poisonous fruit
yet we’re not tempted like Adam and Eve
Enlightenment is our pure pursuit
Consciousness is empty
Still producing samsara
this mind is like a teeter-totter
so we made compassion our motivation
to take self-cherishing to slaughter
equalizing and exchanging with the other
– how taking and giving make you hotter –
with our self-grasping now destroyed
we are water into water
My name is empty
Never to fall into either extreme
I feel your existence like a dream
so tonight when I lay down my head, and
my hand touches yours in our shared bed
I’ll see one achievement more supreme
than how we transformed one evil deed
now easy to remember we’re mere name
still, my wish for you remaining same.
I’m going to keep doing the right thing.
No matter what.
Hardship does not make me give up. Sorrow does not equate to despair.
I am not a coward.
I will feel the pain and move forward.
I am stable, humble, fine
I am patient, wise, and kind
I’ve spent the past six years
training my wandering, restless mind
so if I want conditions now
no external one I’ll find
it’s only by creating causes
that my samsaric rope unbinds
I’ve found this perfect life
with all the misery and strife
with all the teachers and the wisdom
and the mental faculty to listen
to instructions for escape
a perfect path that cannot wait
for only in this lifetime
am I guaranteed this fate
Now it seems I’m close
closer than e’er I’ve been before
and in contemplating emptiness
I’ll walk through freedom’s door
seeing a non affirming negative
I’ll realize truth once more
and by meditating fearlessly and purely
with Buddha’s blessings I implore
Even though I impute this I
and it these attributes ascribe
and unyielding to it relate
and with so many qualities inflate
false sense of self, let’s call it I
and for its suffering, I would die
soon I’ll gain freedom from this me
so silly to chase its own agony
Since I’ve stabilized my practice
becoming grateful and ever kind
I’ve ceased this ceaseless grasping
and all harm of body, speech and mind
so I can live to serve all beings
so all beings can be free
I’ve developed these good qualities
in dependence upon Three
The Halfwit Writer 