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.
The Halfwit Writer 