Categories
Dreams Poetry

The Illusion

I saw a puppy dog in your eyes
I consulted with the night
“Is this a disguise?”
I waited and waited but heard no reply.

I heard an old soul in your voice
I questioned my spirit guides
“Have I before made this choice?”
They laughed and whispered, “Silly pride.”

I retrieved a fiery star
from a faraway realm
“I felt something stir,
and he felt like home.”

“O foolish girl,
we’ve told you before;
you’ll know when you feel it,
you know you need more.”

I combed with my eyes,
searched above and below,
searched within faces,
searched for what I know.

Unexpected, unexpected,
was the whisper from the moon.
Unexpected, unexpected —
but was that going to be soon?

There’s a craving and a longing,
like I’ve come unmoored.
There’s an anxious buzzing dancing,
and I’m yearning to be cured.

Seeking through external,
same mistake as before.
I know it when I feel it,
I know going in means more.

I released the burning star
“What does unexpected mean?”
“You’re missing the point,
stop playing ordinary being.”

I imagined I saw pain in your eyes.
I confessed to the night
“He reflects my disguise.”
“Your wisdom grows,” the dark replied.

I felt a soft soul on your skin,
but the imprints came from mind.
I recognized my old soul from within,
and promised, “This time I’ll be kind.”

The pain I’ve caused in countless lives,
has come against me stacked
with loneliness as a simple karmic scale
bringing balance when with patience I react. 

I accept and cultivate pure love
as an antidote to suffering – both mine
and yours – and with gratitude to guides above
heart embrace, entwine and with universe align.

Virtue and emptiness and wisdom and union
through my intention, ultimate and supreme
with universal compassion, the ultimate communion
and above all else, I will remember the dream. 

Categories
Poetry

A Caterwaul

Can I tempt?
Can I tease?
Can I bring you to your knees?

I never knew I had a power
then I heard the beggar plead

He needed more, he begged to give
He needed more of me to live

I did laugh
I did cry
and to his horror, I denied

I never knew I had a power
then I saw the beggar die

I needed more, I begged to give
I needed more of them to live

I did tempt
I did tease
and I tried my best to please

I disbelieved I had a power
And so delusion ruled with ease

I faded in, I faded out,
I turned to faith from foolish doubt

I did laugh
I did cry
in compassion I now abide

I believe I have a power
and with love I purify

Categories
Poetry

Edge of Tomorrow

I know you

Do you know me?

I cannot help but note the tragedy

of new lives lived with no memory

of old lives discarded though they’re

the very foundation of the new!

— no memory

you have of me

or I’d have seen

some bloody action by now —

or maybe you’re tied down —

she’s got you on the tracks

while I’m off the beaten path

and I’m calling out loud

— but you can’t hear me

you don’t know me

you can’t see me

you’ve forgotten —

I had too

but now I’ve seen —

no. I felt the tug,

a heart string plucked

and yearned anew

for only you

as if I’d done this many times before

a feeling I could not ignore

familiar and odd — uncanny

when you looked at me

with no knowledge of

the touches I gave long ago

time erases and time has passed

ages since we danced in the afterglow

— now no memory,

though time did slow

when you looked at me

and my heart beat so rhymically

as if we’d done this all before

— and yet, no more

as you walked away

I longed to say

what I’m looking for —

Enlightenment, and is it at your door?

I wish to be rich and it’s such

delusions that keep me poor

tempt me tease me all you want

— or do not —

I still remember you

do let me know if I can stir

a memory —

do you know me?

Categories
Poetry

Delayed Gratification

I have promised patience
in exchange for a kingdom of happiness

I have promised patience
in exchange for an appearance of love

I have promised patience
in exchange for unattached enjoyments

I have promised patience
for you, so we can complete the path together

So I wait, like a princess in her tower
with patience, my Buddha nature I empower

I promised patience, and I wait for you
with faith unwavering, my heart is true.

Categories
Buddhism Poetry

The Wink

Why do you torture me?

Does your eye boast truth
or do mine bear fiction?
I write lies to soothe me to sleep
a samsaric slumber steeped in tales of attachment,
happiness served on a silver platter
just a taste and, absent of addiction,
I’ll be satisfied — just your touch
and I’ll not want more — a lie
like salt water quenching thirst —
only thirstier I grow for
— just your tongue lending sweet
nothings to an indiscriminate ear
incorrectly discriminating — just your
taste to tease unintentional senses
dependent upon such sour
senseless ignorance dependent upon
countless causes, rebirths, misunderstood
and non-existent selfs — but maybe still,
it’s just your self that will satisfy this self
& somehow, still, we will escape samsara
— a lie of attachment, a joke, a wink

Is that what you mean to give,
when you torture me?

Categories
Poetry

Lost

I lost your number
a long time ago
— right away

after the lock broke
it was clear
I couldn’t be trusted

how things have changed
and mistaken memory
makes you
bigger, then smaller than
you were, are

who are you now?
I wonder

I lost my privilege
to know

the you
grown in moments
now passed

Categories
Buddhism Poetry

Constant Craving

I want to be
someone who loves you

with no demands
with no expectations
with no history of delusion

I want to be
the pure love always within you

yet still,
I cherish only myself

I want you to see me
I want you to love me

because of this
damned self-grasping

And then I laugh remembering
we is just a dream

Categories
Buddhism Philosophy Poetry

Consistently Mistaken

I thought when I received, I would be grateful.

I wasn’t.

I thought to be pursued would be fun, a real romp.

It wasn’t.

I thought to be beheld as beautiful could give me confidence, know my beauty.

It didn’t.

I thought to be loved to could open my heart, make me love.

It couldn’t.

I thought when tested, I would pass.

I didn’t.


“We will only engage in pure spiritual practice if we have definitely understood that we have a precious human life and we have to use it now. We can die today. It’s possible.”

Gen-la Kunsang, Kadampa Podcast

Categories
Buddhism Meditation Poetry

cramped in the tub

I am in the tub

I am dissatisfied
this tub has taken me nowhere
I’ve been round this way before

it ended with suffering

slit wrists in the clawfoot
or just the bath water ran cold

It ended with suffering
and I wanted escape

from the tub

*

I can’t out-damn-spot my misery

I can’t wash away the pain

purification doesn’t exactly work that way —
unless we carefully imagine it does (in four steps)

but who has the mindfulness for that?

not I, as I search for meaning in this worthless pleasure

careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water

I transform this all-too-addictive
suffering through wisdom, and will
tuck this teaching

into the continuum as I tuck myself
into bed

careful not to slip as I stand and step

out of the tub

Categories
Buddhism Poetry

Self Cherished

I am an ocean of wanting
I am discontent

How dissatisfied I feel
with samsara’s gifts

Prison-barred burdens’
more like it!

Now, I have the instructions
for escape

Yet I cling, I grasp
at less than straws

Mere suffering ensnares
it claws

I should let go, I think
I know

And still,
I let my desire grow