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.
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?
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
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
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
The lid closed slowly —
it used to slam,
startling you
lots of loud noises
offended, scared you
one day, I saw
I had become a loud noise
now I’m quiet,
tamed and evenly tempered
my mind is trained,
practiced, wise
the very things you wished
by the very method you hated —
blessings.
I see the toilet seat
fall — slowly
silently
and wish blessings
upon you
still
Some things come
Some things go
At least that’s what
We think we know
Yet no thing can rise
And no thing can fall
For there is no out there
Mind is all
I made you a picnic for dinner
many nights that week
You showed me where you used to live
with your last ex (there are many)
I’ve joined the lineup
and I’m not eager to see
our once-sacred spots shared, although
in hindsight, it was predictable
your memories still float, caught
in the historic locks of
the Rideau canal
(His last words)
I feel gooey inside
I mean more than usual
I think my insides are melting
something warm is happening in my heart
it’s making a bubble
something’s about to pop
this really doesn’t feel quite right
I think I’m rising from the inside out
the heat supposed to be external
but this is gutting me
tearing me apart
hot bit by bit expanding
and do you see this bulge here?
no! not my stomach!
hoo-hoo!!
don’t poke me at a time like this —
can’t you see I’m in pain?
oh! dire pain!
being wrenched apart
baked wrong side out
surely this isn’t in the directions —
can we trouble shoot?
something’s happening to my throat
the words aren’t
coming out good
no more
ooey gooey heart
hoo-hooo
Okay… so this isn’t the thirstiest. x.x but can you picture that it probably isn’t Mrs. Poppie Fresh Pillsbury Doughboy doing it for him. 😉
You might not need a tall glass of water, but perhaps a cold glass of milk and a hot, soft chocolate chip cookie would satisfy you.
Not fair!
I said I wouldn’t become
attached to you,
changing condition
yet, so much sorrow
fills minds that grasp
at the losing
a mistaken conception:
yes, it is the summer
that offers me joy
so easy to believe
when winter brings
us pain – in joints,
in frostbitten fingers
in the minds of
jealousy when our friends
flee to now-appreciated
tropical timeshares — now
no more summertime
to share
one dream ends
while we’re trapped
in another
romantic autumn’s
place will come, when
this dull and tiresome
sadness becomes boring
to my fitful, grasping mind
but now, I see only
a broken promise to myself
I wouldn’t become attached
I said
I must have failed
why else would I lay
blame with the season’s change
for my woe
The Halfwit Writer