Categories
Poetry

confusing conditions

built to be broken
 & cracked down to dust
born to be suffered
     offend and break trust
invented to abscond
 tried to be trashed
   told to fuck off
     & thrashed for a laugh
samsara’s play buckles
          pulls out all the stops
the audience participation
          wallops a good punch

nonsense and dream world
          collide innocent
how do awful things ripen?
can we prevent one torment?

it hurts so we harden
it pricks so we hack
               all beauty to pieces
        even though it doesn’t last
                                     on its own

what pride can be held
    in accomplishing the same
         as time does with no effort
              robbing us of each name
revenge becomes pointless
    as our hearts become stone
I press, we must realize our mind
‘cause I can’t take this pain
                   all apparent losses
    grief felt again and again

all relationships tarnish
      all chaos lets loose
I thought this time was different
      and so volunteered for the noose
but from this redundant perspective
      it’s so easy to see
I was built to be broken
    & caged to be freed

Categories
Poetry

a week before the fall

a slothful orb ascends,
            slowly across the southern sky
    already missing its peak
it shirks responsibility,
             no longer a light above by nine a.m.
in the yard, clocked shadows hold morning’s chill
            while, with a furnace blast, blazing warmth is cast
    lethally, from an expiring sun’s face

what a time of year
    one of dread and fascination

a reverse magic of the spring takes place
    dishearteningly unbelievable

everything once vital and green
    withers away, as flames to ash
full bushes decay under still-blue skies
                       crosshatched with chem trails

autumn’s appearance should sting less
    with each year of expectation
            but the knife travels the same scar,
    ripping the tissue open once more
            spilling the crinkle of leaves, isolated chirps
                                         icy rainfall spurts

there can be no love in autumn
       what — love for a dying thing?
we expect spring’s rebirth in its vein
    but it’s different
                  inconceivably so
    as nothing can come back the same
taking its time, different life does grow

I no longer delight in season’s change
    a witness to illness arising
                                  and constant pain
    raw attachment, unhooked anew,
            broken hearts where love once grew

I cannot bear to face the task
    of reliving seasons, to watch them pass
            as all things slip like time in glass
    my cageless prison, this life, outlasts

free me before I plunge once more
    through autumn’s orange enchanted door
            cold aversion ripening
                grasping at inherent things

I know it’s wrong,     so little worse
            than self-cherishing
                        my ugly curse

may I be free before the fall
        —    just one more week
                              to see it all
                                      correctly

Categories
Poetry

Echoes

In each life
   we walk away
       from one another
       thinking this life will be different
   we tried it again
and now
   we walk away
       from one another
       a different name
       a different place
       a different time

if the karma remains
                       unpurified

       again we’ll try
       again we’ll try

Categories
Buddhism Dreams Poetry

cursed & okay

could it be worth the pain?
sure it could hurt (does hurt)
but it always can! (and will!)
samsara’s blessing, and its curse!

there’s always suffering
it’s always there
agony & heartache
these endless cares

unfulfilled wishes
we ain’t some dying breed
we’ve been wishing and craving
burning with need

since beginningless time
(that’s time without beginning)
we’ve been lost in self-grasping
our delusions are winning

then enter love, a virtue
not some object of wanting
but a wish for your happiness
not taking, not haunting

like once, a vampire sucked
my energy, my time, my luck
even when I yearned to fuck
he made me feel yuck, yuck, yuck

no more! I just yearn to give
I wish to love, to laugh to live
and even though I know it hurts
I just think it could be worse

so I’m willing to try and bear such pain
I’m even willing to go insane
(okay, never mind…I’m already there)
and I really wish I didn’t care!

but it seems I don’t have a choice
and I have a lot of choices –
normally – a lot of control
not over external matters of course…

but in this dream world,
control over matters of mind
apparently not matters of the heart
but definitely matters when being kind

alright I want to wrap this up
like a Christmas gift, my loving cup
a trophy that I wish to offer
filled with jewels as if a coffer

and yet, I awaken from the dream
to grasp at less than air between
this reality, mind-made, of you, of me
and now give up the fantasy

because it’s never worth the pain
it’s never worth the endless grasping
it’s never worth insanity
or the infinite, familiar clasping

and on this evening drear and gloomy
under clouds all grey and doomy
I curse my love life, I confess to crime
I accept the loss, and I’ll do the time

Categories
Poetry

Lost Life Loss

                         a memory

it is not mine

                      upon a log I sit

           ‘neath the snowy pine

under darkened sky

                      beside earthen stove

           a bitter wind kicks up

in the moonlit grove

                      the jingle of the horse & sleigh

           as it carries him so far away

I cannot weep, I do not cry

                      a muted heart is breaking

           and as the silence lies

a frozen bough is snapping – loud

                      to crack the quiet

           still, expected in the freeze

I do not startle, there is no breeze

         no wind at back to impel me

                      my bones have stiffened here

           my mind is anything but clear

as the winter’s solitude

                      forces delusions rather rude

           inner quietude never did follow outer

now it’s simply easier to hear

                      internal screaming

         though the fire burns, continuous

it takes us not

                        because it cannot reach

         what we refuse we got

         buried below

                        alive and dead

         some peace & love

                                     blessings bestowed

how are these all stripped from me?

         as he plods on down the snowy path

                  I know he won’t be coming back

         so I’m wrecked to watch him leave

though it is not my memory

Categories
Buddhism Dreams Poetry

Temporary Illusion-like Appearance

          Open your mind, heart
          to feel what you feel, name it

your Spiritual Guide whispers to you
as a wave that laps the sandy shore, gently
receding, absent whitecaps

          Name what you feel
          be not afraid
          for what rises will fall
          and what fear have we
          of what is not permanent,
          never mind what we cannot name?
          What we cannot name does not exist,
          so what is it?

and you go within,
as instructed for
within is all there is
when there is
no out there out there

and you feel

disappointment
red, raw, and sinewy
funnily, sadly, and sorely
familiar, rubbed, worn and
blistered, in risk of rot
if you let it fester like
resentment –
                    you can’t
I was here first          your way
in or out of this one

it’s not yours, except
you lay claim to its
disappointment
as though it could have been
if it could have it would have
and it didn’t so it won’t

and you think

acceptance
the sweetest fruit,
sometimes the heaviest to bear
laid at your feet as you risk despair
only having to pick it up, lift it
with legs of wisdom,
but no –
                    I chose
to disappoint       myself

yet, hope

hope is here too
blossoming as a new bud
for disappointment
could not create sorrow
where love and compassion
had already taken root –
my mind protected by a gate of
incredible goodness, the only pleasure
I’ll happily increase in samsara’s garden
where running never yields escape
for the iron fence is the nature
of the mind – presently misunderstood

so hope,

hope that yields to faith
is what transforms my dream
because I must believe that
change is possible, is real
to make progress, effort, heal
I trust my Spiritual Guide’s instructions
for I put them to the test
and when hope transformed to purest
Faith, I see they are the best
and still my foolish mind cannot
afford to rest

because I was the mind of
unnecessary disappointment today
the utmost waste of breath
when each and every thing that’s ripened
has been for my swift path’s benefit
          so this too I will transform
and birth love so great it shall
become the norm, even if time be brief
we have so little to work with,
yet there’s so much we can achieve
if we hold correct belief

so, still I see the disappointment
my mind claims as mine – though truly
I could do without, here, add to that list
my deluded doubt
                    I know my happiness doesn’t lie here,
and still I mourn a temporary loss –
                    so instead, I donate
these mistaken minds to the cause,
the cause of the effect, the only one
I wish to possess, the greatest mind
of precious Enlightenment

(for others’ benefit, may I forever cease
these horrible, painful minds of suffering)

Categories
Dreams Poetry

Possession

I

throat has seized
and body lusts,
reach out to grasp
man built to thrust

yet nothing there
for me to reach
and absent trust
rendered release

I cannot help
but ask and plead,
what dread clasp
robbed me of peace
?

II

such a force came over me
I could not name
I could not tame
without remorse
my mind possessed
cut him down
to see him bled

III

a piece of mind
it held me back
so his murder
I did not commit
but the urge arose,
as I now recall,
to myself hard to admit
the need for me to train my mind
before I face the nearing times
when all are tested
most will fail
as they trained their minds
to no avail

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
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