Tag Archives: poem

Meditation

Dissect the segments into manageable bits
where they fit together, pull apart
see how they bend, break and walk.
How, as a unit, they function
to become part of a greater whole.

Now, examine where you come into this.
Has your totality served some purpose?
What motions have you made?
In what places have you fractured?
Where have you found yourself contorted?
So examined, can you pull yourself together?

All of this in concert is terrifying
as an avalanche rushing down
eager for violent embrace,
but apart – tis no more than falling snow.

It is the act of knowing a thing that makes it small;
not the crushing of it beneath heel.
Such violence will only stick with you
harder to clean off with every step.
Seek instead the kindness of curiosity,
find in it the courage to be greater;
and learn enough of yourself to know another.

Rhapsody

Who –
who
        are the wires attached to
those dangling strings must end on limbs
      loose now, but most times taught
bringing to heel those movements transposed
        imposed
by a handler at the other end
[rhapsody]

Who –
who’s joy are we seeing?
      the puppets joy can be inferred from context
          an elaborate event, well staged
  but just above their head a storm cloud of strings
like tentacles grasping from sea floor rocks;
    there is danger in this kind of truth.

Who –
who would concede so easily
    and not follow their suspicions to the puppeteer?
  Surely this rhapsody is theirs.
      they move the strings to the songs they sing
bringing the puppet to life,
  though when the wires die,
so too the light in their eyes
  for the mind within is troubled.

Who –
        who then is rhapsody?
    is it anybody or nobody?
        The mirage of a destiny we wish to manifest
from either end of those strings.

Caprice

Why go planting rocks to build walls
when all you want is the space between?

The borders we design around ourselves
we hope will limit us to a successful path
advancing past options that otherwise distract.
The walls that line the road ahead
lead everyone down beneath the ground dead.

The way forward is a dream of the people
the sleepless nights of the nation
and the slumbering horror of the ego.

Venture forward no longer, enjoy the empty moments;
forward is inevitable, let it come to you.
Pursue instead the present, hunt it down
track it through the vibrations of entropy
and subdue it beneath the canopy of mortality;
that dark carapace that keeps us writhing.

The victory may cost you success
but it will birth in you the knowledge
of what success really is.

Safe Travels

We crossed the earth with planes, trains and automobiles
with boats, cruise ships, and whalers.
We crossed the earth with poisons
harpoons and muskets
with naked flesh hungry for furs
and insecurities demanding conquest.
With fears that birthed shackles and cages
and empty hearts that could recognize no others.
We crossed the earth with trade
financial analytics, global markets
bonds, loans and shell accounts;
with people and products and people as products.
We crossed the earth with shell fire,
artillery, war ships, fighter jets and drones.
With fire bombs, fire bats, patriot missiles
nuclear bombs and peace treaties;
with demilitarization, missionaries and imperialism.
We crossed the earth with progress,
invention, intention and exploration;
with philosophy and reason
the fires of icarus, and the smoke and mirrors of christ;
with the patience of Buddha, the temperament of Vishnu;
the criticism of Nietzsche, the ambition of Socrates
and with the virus of ignorance.
We crossed the earth over and over again
the betrayals stagnant in the air
as yet unanswered.

With

Cut outs moving like vaudeville
through tiny slits of reality
thin sliced, deli cut life.

Come see the show
but you should know
the show is all you’ll see;

The surface of an ocean
shimmers with the light of the sun
but it is neither.

The cutouts, void on paper
run together as shadows
yet they are neither.

For paper was once whole
and the ocean is steeped in history
lives are lived beyond the periphery.

Though we can never see what lies within
without ourselves diving in
taking the risk to live unguided,

Sometimes it’s nice to just sit and watch
these figures dancing through frames
the sun dewed water pulling at the sand,

sometimes it is nice enough to live
and let live
to be done for the day.

Stagehand

Found
on the ground, a rhythm in the dirt
like a cackling brook beneath the surface
the sound is nervous
confounding any sense of purpose.
Look around
[you];
while you are free most are bound
a town full of brown slacks
round spectacles
all shapes are there on stage,
but the spotlight is on the testicles
because there lies rationality
or so says the old spectacle;
a fashion of resounding sterility.
Anonymity the greatest renown
or so says the celebrity.
So what if it costs our identity?
foster instead gratitude
over an exhausting attitude,
those, “what-ifs” reeling always around the head.
That fish you wish you’d caught?
You’ve already fought before and tossed back.
It wasn’t about what it had
but what you lacked.
Now, you’re on the other side,
more mad than glad that bridge was crossed
yet always
still
lost.