Tag: Poetry

Categories
Philosophy Poetry

Elevated Intentions (…still need wisdom)

sympathy is
       I see your suffering, and I relate
empathy is
       I see your suffering, and I wish to relate
compassion is
       I see your suffering and I wish you to be free from it
bodhichitta is
       I cannot bear to see your suffering, so I will become enlightened to free you from it

Most of what we speak & seek
is causes for – and sympathy;
but how much better would life be,
if we abandoned victim mentality?

Why is sorrow such a strange addiction,
so familiar to my mind?
I cannot be free from misery;
it’s all I’ve known and all I’ll find!
       — such an easy thing to cry
believing escape from suffering a lie
unknowing there’s a firm way out
for those with patient, faithful eyes,
for those who abandon deluded doubt

                           — What imagination is this!
what strength it takes to change one’s sight
no material quest could yield such result
for in samsara one cannot do right

                           — What can one do!
rely upon blessings & elevate intention
remain natural while wishing to help; think:
Oh! What would it really be like
       to be happy and kind spontaneously
to face all problems with joyful mind
with strength and courage to defeat all foes
while maintaining love and compassion, I’ll find
it easy for blessings to arise, received and bestowed
I’ll help all living beings with ease and with grace

I’ll abandon delusion, because fearless I face
 the appearances that rise and fall –
       hallucinations, like dreams –
understanding reality, from mind,
                                  is never as seems
because I’m grasping, anxious, clinging
my stories are hard to let go
I should instead rewrite myself the hero
great responsibility mine, undeniably so

How could I cope with this level of fame?
in anonymity, no one knowing my name
in correct paths I follow
                      but I must impute
I’m no longer a victim, no longer the brute
seeing myself the lowest of all,
through infinite timelines, I recall
the artist’s drive to wield the sword
       settling instead for
              ink seldom seen and music sometimes heard
       limited proud intention
to right the wrongs and mend men’s minds
still what more can I do but mimic
in appreciation of writers of Blake’s kind
              I render copied letter into copied word

Tyger, Tyger burning bright
surprised to find you here tonight
easy confidence, phat face
curly locks, so out of place
twinkle, twinkle, of thyne eye
what is your fearful symmetry?
absent, as one pupil enlarged
brightly burning in furnace forged
what is they breath? thy breast? thy might?
so like a woman in the night!
odd & absent-minded maid
back to cold burner, you do fade

he speaks to her with bleary eye
long-winded and past-wounded
he longs for sympathy, to cry
nearly, he is refusèd
she listens with a weary ear
she’s heard it all before
her heart is hardened, scarred by fear
his hurt she can ignore
what good is sympathy to folks
with pain and broken heart
it is compassion that fixes our flaws
so simple is our part

from compassion comes love
and it’s easy to flourish
exchange self with others
with a quick change of intention
to complete all actions with ease
we develop bodhichitta motivation
with familiarity come all habits
spontaneous, effortless
removing delusions from our mind
we soon derive meaning
from the very thing that was,
from our side,      meaningless

develop and meditate upon
correct intention

pray for wisdom

sympathy is
       I see your suffering, and I relate
empathy is
       I see your suffering, and I wish to relate
compassion is
       I see your suffering and I wish you to be free from it
bodhichitta is
       I cannot bear to see your suffering, so I will become enlightened to free you from it

Categories
Poetry

Late October

I love hearing the trees talk
sometimes the high branches speak
            and the low branches listen
sometimes the east whispers to the west                  which gives silence in response
sometimes they all chatter at once
            I lie in the sun, watching, listening

  I dread the coming winter’s quiet
        absent leafy voices,
              instead violent creaks
disturb the silence,   as do
              small explosions,
breaking branches, piercing snow
        crunching, snapping
              deadened, hollowed,
                     muffled, no water flows
I wish that it would not come soon
  but winter’s here in just one moon

Categories
Poetry

beginningless rebirths, abridged

you see me as a girl when
I have been your mother
you see me mother, after
I have been your child
you see me enemy after
I have been your friend
you see me a beginning after
I’ve been each and every end
only you don’t see the continuum
you don’t see what it’s for
you don’t see the “big picture”
you beg for common sense once more

you see me as a girl
you take me as a lover
you feel each pleasure new
and each pain rediscover
next you’ll meet me as your foe
and know my torture’s art
you’ll beg to be without me
while wishes ripen to never part
the cruelest joke of samsara
the wish-granter, genie, jewel
all worldly prayers do cometh true
with just timing making us the fool

you see me as a girl
radiant, free, and open
and you, overcome with envy,
how you wish to see me broken
by running toward temptation,
grasping at the self, and craving
we lose the possibility of salvation
with such constant misbehaving
how can we overcome our loathing
and refrain from touching skin?
for in heated hate-filled love embrace
I’ll remember you were once my twin

you see me as a girl
when I have been your mother
I have been your sister, father, uncle
yes, I have been your brother
I have been a loyal lab
and I a miser, cheat, and thief
I’ve rested in eternal peace
only to wake with new belief
seeing inner demons, outer
giving unending evil toments
with such cyclic suffering for all,
how can bodhichitta remain dormant?

you see me as a girl
you take me as a lover
you feel each raw sensation new
and rare laughter rediscover
how ’bout we call it quits
and cease identifying this mind
’cause ordinary doesn’t cut it
when extraordinary’s been defined
I don’t know about your view, but
mine says this pleasure garden’s rotting
my time here is running out
and my tell-tale heart is clotting

so don’t see me as a girl
goddamn it! – don’t take me as a lover
because incest is against the law
and I have been your mother
just as sure, you have been mine
some aeons or some years ago
for we’ve done all there is to do
in all the worlds there are to know
so let’s grow bored and say no more
and escape with little wits we’ve left
we’ve done it all … oh countless times before!
now let us create cause for happiness!

Categories
Poetry

Remain ordinary?

The earth movers are
moving, rolling, crawling,
pushing and prodding,
chewing and producing,
reforming earth, not new
a spherical cycle
we cannot seem to undo
because there’s no beginning
as if time isn’t true
no start to these effects
no one to lay cause-mic blame with —
              — Is there no first?

If an action is not performed
its result cannot be experienced
yet, we have results upon results
                     that we do not want
or right wishes ripen at wrong times —
  — How did we get so messed up?

Meeting instructions time and again
  only to turn to worldly things instead —

–What for?
     The status? The stress? The money? The dress? The food? The car? All the gold and the stars? The sun and the moon and that catchy tune? This silly girl? That handsome guy? To hunt the deer? To swat the fly? To fuck that guy? To steal that heart? To flaunt your glory? To meet and part? To taste the spoils? To lose at war? To break most promises? To endure and endure?

What for!

Is it everything you wanted to find?
Is it a wonder to know
                      it’s all from your mind?

the pain and the laughter,
       all the dreamlike appearance

the senses and delights
               the agony and fights

we hurt our own feelings
we stab our own backs
we rob our own purses
our own courage lacks

when will we learn
to break a silly curse
we need only three words
   –why do they hurt?

It’s my responsibility

No, not of this time
not of this place
not of this name
and not of this face

But causes created aeons ago
ripen around me, blow by hard blow
some happy, some sad
some angry, some blue
some maddening disasters
some friends I once knew
for so long without wisdom
I watched in horror, despair
             Oh! What can I do?

No better than an earth mover
moving, rolling, crawling,
fulfilling my own wishes,
pushing and prodding,
swallowing and producing,
making new dirt, not new
a spherical cycle
we cannot seem to undo
because there’s no beginning
as if time isn’t true
no start to these causes
that produce these effects
so with patient acceptance
I now practice with perfect intention
with a pure, faithful, trained mind
remembering dreamlike appearance
to see emptiness directly
                   with clear wisdom eyes

Categories
Poetry

Sensational Assault

shining jewel clusters
        break open the escarpment
like precious stones waiting to be mined
        brilliant leafy treasure
             blasts of magnificent colour
                  explode across the rocky grandstand
             backdrop to the season’s splendor
        its once generous green given way
        to greedy autumn’s foliage display

absent emeralds
        stolen by nature’s alchemy
   redeemed for rubies, garnets
                            amber, gold
        the greatest illusion
              of     tempered grandeur
        before the bitter cold

it should be forbidden
        that beauty unfolds
        so lithely in loveliness
                before its death
dappled luster’s ugliness
                only revealed up close
moths have chewed endlessly
        leafy veins, now begging bowls
blackened edges encase
                               slug-gobbled holes
not unlike the singed suffering
        of cigarette-burned abuse

maple’s steepled points
                   waxed and dried
crunchy now upon crisp earth
        hard to understand its worth
        its place in time,
        once life, once food
        now dead, now dearth

and oh the scents! I cannot forget
     the dampened clay and rotting fern
        sickly sweet suckles long dried up
a sun-baked bog with willowed dregs
the sunflowered smells twist into sound
scritch-scratching of squirrel toes in trees
chipmunks squeak, thin branches break
                           acorns land in leaves
a buzz of daubers, wasps and bees
        harmonized with the last cicada song
too soon the symphony will cease
               and tarsi tickles won’t be found
not for so long!            so if you please…

I beg for just a bit of time
        to exhaust under this dying sun
        that scalds with will to kill all life
        that incinerates the weak and blind
leave me alone to work my mind
        and feel the last blaze of the year
        striving not to shed a tear
        striving not to feel false fear
that knights permanence on temporary conditions

I will be strong        and wise
        and remain loving, kind
though winter has its eternal quality
        once here, ne’er gone
                still… it must go eventually
                we’ll see…

just let me loaf in this season’s sun
        to soak in such sensational torture –
                     intense, so brief, so fun –
                        ending soon,
                        hardly begun

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

Controlled Demolition

Everyone expects

      A bang!

           A surprise!

     Shock and chaos
        reflected in wide blue eyes

But falling in its own footprint

The detritus simply smokes

Blinding our eyes
                little surprise
      we can’t realize

The truth of the state
                 which we create

Too close we’ve come
        too far we’ve been
we now seek something in between

In degenerate times
    it is impossible to build purely

Follow the path out
         and do not rejoice in death

make good use of this little time left

Categories
Good Fortune Poetry

Antidote

I do not want vacations
I do not want jewels
I don’t mind bouquets of flowers
but someone must take them out
when they begin to rot and stink
          and I am busy spending ink

I don’t want riches
I don’t want gold
I don’t mind pearls
but that’s because they’re a symbol of purity
       – at least that’s what I’m told
I don’t want to hoard for when I’m old

I don’t want too much trouble
I’ll just take enough
to prepare me, make me stronger
for when things inevitably get tough

I don’t want to be a mark
I don’t want to be a thief
I don’t want to receive more
          than my share of beef

I don’t want my own car
I don’t want my own house
I don’t want to own pets
  or really anything else!

It may sound a little lazy
it may even sound lame
   but I’ll take a peaceful life
unburdened by such wanton things

It’s all really perverse –
      this cruel misunderstanding
of how reality exists
         manically apart and magnetically banding

I do not want the wool
pulled over my eyes
I do not want to ignore
the suffering, the cries

I wish to be free from it all
and collect only the treasure of Dharma
for there is no practice too small
and all experiences are karma

I do not want vacations
I do not want jewels
I desire no relationship
I no longer suffer fools
with all my mind in refuge
every moment, every day
it’s incredible how quickly
the three poisons fade away

Categories
Poetry

Spring Renewal, an endless cycle

I can feel time slowly slipping through my fingers
frictionless to hold a second for a second moment
before falling through the ether into near nothingness
imprinted on continuum
a seed carried life to life
until conditions are right
to ripen the fruit on an unsuspecting self
   — I am sorry

   But how can it be helped?
I cannot squeeze this self into another
instead I chip away at delusions
from the inside out
destroying deluded doubt
and always at play
never a day spent away from refuge
and still I fight a deluge
of intense suffering
always threatening
to drown a silly me
how can it be
at war with three
extract My poisons, please!

Oh doctor of holy medicine,
I am a sick being
full of rotten feeling
still misunderstanding compassion
still giving with miserly ration
still confused at apparent separation
what can I do
I sit and contemplate emptiness
I feel like less and less
I can impress others
I merely offend
with no ability to comprehend
how meaningless it all is
without a pure intention
to worry about such brief condition
when I could be creating
a beautiful future feeling
and care for other instead
please, mend my broken head

Please, mend my broken heart
so that I may finally start
to love, to give happiness
and understand what comes does part
although appearing, no longer relating
to mistaken imputation
and while all expectations break
and friends do talk and fuck and fake
until the joy becomes real
and pain is permanently healed
may my pure virtue be revealed
through blessings be shared
and eventually may I care
only for other, selflessly
give me such pure appearance
so with happiness, I’ll dance
and, just perhaps,
give pure love chance after chance

Categories
Poetry Saturday Expressions

Imagination | Session 20

Imagination is a funny thing
Can be a vile thing
A wildling, can motivate
Or desecrate
With or without the evidence
Mind makes its own proof
Mind draws me in attachment
Then makes me act aloof
Imagination is a lonely thing
Appearing individual and separate
Travels as though disparate
Never in one place
Ever pervading space
Remembering those I’ve met
Ever scheming, making bets
Ever brushing against yours
Yet pretending we’re all bores
How can we rely upon such a beast?
For it’s our untuned vehicle
Rattles over bumps and around curves
Unoiled, rusted, nearly busted
Soft, moth-eaten, torn-fabric seats
Our minds have been used and abused
We’re so confused, and we’re always
Giving our power to those who prey
Who eat away all day to get their fill
Upon the lonelies,
the innocents, the broken
Those who have not awoken
Those whose hearts have turned to clay
Moldable, opposable yet breakable
When dry and old and grey
May my mind not go that way
Imagination is a funny thing
A lovely thing
Can make you sing,
When you fill yourself with love and understanding
Gives you courage to jump
Lets you float before landing
And how can we access this happy mind alone?
One that helps others
Defends against crones
Simple as this
Control your mind
Or someone else will