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 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

Absent Slam

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

Categories
Buddhism Philosophy Poetry

Reality

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

Categories
Poetry Thirsty Thursday

Thirsty Thursday | How love was the end of the Pillsbury Doughboy

(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.

Categories
Poetry

Summer Affair

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

Categories
Poetry

The Worst Thing

written in 2013


It’s selfish and conceited, but sometimes I like to think I was your worst.
I’m the little period in your life you swallow pills to forget.
I’m the worst thing to ever happen to you.

I kept you up all night, tossing in your bed,
while thoughts went ’round your head,
like:
who the fuck is she, and
did she mean what she said?

I’m a little piece of nightmare that got stuck in your dream teeth.
I’m the ghost devil on your shoulder, that you thought you’d shed.

Every so often you recall what I did,
and think:
shit, what did I get into, and
can it never happen again?

I was conceited when I loved you; I was selfish when I left.
I tossed words without abandon; I belittled what we had.

Misery loves company, was my battle cry.
I hung the phrase on all my banners, and
let harsh words fall from my lips.

Each second I felt scorned, I thought would be my last
Every teardrop that fell from my eye,
you knew I blamed on you.
I stuck a dagger in your chest, hoping to rake through
your ribs and crack them down to dust.

I love to imagine how I was the worst thing to ever happen to you,
and in that I will be immortalized.

I’m the slanderous tale told at the cabin, and ghost story for the young.
A cautionary tale of psycho bitches, and what can come undone.
A warning for your friends, a comedy for the bored,
a thank-your-lucky-stars-it-wasn’t-you for the unappreciative ignored.

I will outlive all the rest, based on my infamy of awfulness.

And then I feel downright bad.

Because I loved you in the moment. I treasured what we had.
I trusted every word you spoke, believed each lie you said —
I think we both did —

and when I started believing I was the
worst thing that could happen to you, that I was crazy and insane,
I ran away and still blame you, even if it’s all in vain.

Because I was the worst thing to ever happen to you.

Categories
Poetry

Pandora’s Box

I’ve come across you
twice before

and each time

I opened you!

Alas, even
the second time
I knew!

To tell you
the truth…

I would do it again.

It is said,
we run straight
to the causes
of our suffering

My experience
could be proof

Though I may act
quite aloof
(or at times a goof)

I am burning with 
desire inside
egotistical pride

seven sins wrapped
up tight

in the unforgetting world
it is difficult
to let go of attachment

So faced with the choice 
once more – to open
or leave closed
hell’s wicked door

I swing it wide
and hop the hearth
to the other side

to tell you the truth…
I’m just exhausting
negative karma

bringing about 
the end of these
tiresome cycles

how ’bout you help? 

Tell me the truth…
would you open the box?