The smell of bones
The air of pain
The bubbling of blood.
Not to be shunned
or avoided
but bathed in
as a hot-spring
for an aching body.
Karma to Karma.
Lips to lips.
The kiss of death;
To heal me
of my ignorance.
The world works
Just this way,
And I shouldn't hide
from the truth
Like I once did
When I was so
Full of myself.
Thank you, Great Teacher,
for the taste of wisdom
you give me,
and the way your
incense
fills my nose
with the smell
of reality.
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
The day awaits,
hard like cold iron,
waiting to be heated and
hammered into some fresh, new shape.
The loud banging of the hammer and anvil
a song to be heard throughout the day,
but yet to begin.
The fog,
gripping.
grasping,
clinging to everything it touches,
trying so very hard not to lose its tenuous hold on life,
whimpering as it slides down the hillside.
The crows beckon,
from on high and down low,
their voices stabbing through the quiet,
making their intentions known.
What they're saying
is readily heard;
what is being said remains a mystery,
lost in translation.
The sound of all things,
loud and quiet,
gentile and shrill,
soft and sharp,
caresses me like the hands of a lover,
with a mind of their own,
wants and needs of their own,
and their own
agenda.
To what do I owe the pleasure?
To thee, of course.
To years of truth that cut like scalpels, knives and saws,
Leaving me bloody, but lighter.
To years of fire that burn away the underbrush, deadfall and chaff,
Setting the forest floor for growth anew.
To years of flood that have washed away all the loose, fetid rot of me,
Where my "good" and "bad" are not distinguished.
To the wind, ever-present, blowing hard from all directions;
Challenging me to stand in the face of it and howl back.
To all those energies that have come to manifest my life;
Each person, place, thing that has helped me become more verb-like.
The magic of banality, the wonder of boredom, the thrill of ennui;
Each sting of assumption and error a Zenji.
To sit
As a stone
In a field;
Immovable but by time,
Resolute through stasis,
Confident via gravity,
Stalwart by way of density.
Eternal on the small scale,
Insignificant to the large.
A solid, concrete illusion.
An æons-old, tenuous conglomeration.
Dependable,
Yet ever crumbling,
atom
by
atom
back
into
aggregate.
Out of time,
out of place,
out of form,
The Universe spreads her legs,
and
Noumena is born.
Looking upon this place
With blurry,
unfocused,
impossibly blue eyes;
Seeing that all is right with the world,
and greeting it with a awful, confused wail.
To go deeper than ever before
Presupposes a shallowness that may
or may not
be a delusion.
Can the ocean ever truly be shallow?
Can the sea ever be anything other than the sea?
Are there parts that are one thing,
but not the other?
I peak
as a wave
acting alone
but never truly
Alone.
I crest
like a mountain
atop an ever moving
firmament.
I crash
like diamonds
upon an eternal and endless
shore.
I recede
back into the depths
of the infinite potential of
suchness.
I am
as you are.
Same.
Same.
But different.
To be alone is a great burden. To be accompanied, a terrible one. To fear loneliness is to fear your true self. To want more than what already is is both ignorance and madness.
Just let go and everything is alright.
Just let go and everything is okay.
Just let go and suffering dissolves.
Just let go and pain disappears.
Just let go.
Quit splashing and thrashing.
Let the water settle,
And all becomes clear.
Just let go and everything straightens out.
Just let go and everything smooths.
Just let go and stop chasing.
Just let go and start being.
Just let go.
Loosen your grip and your heart.
Choose to be supple,
And all becomes soft.
Just let go and everything is right.
Just let go and everything is just so.
Just let go and see it sharpen.
Just let go and feel it focus.
Just let go.
Know that you seek a birthright.
It has been gained before.
It is nothing new.
Just let go through space and time.
Just let go like the Honored Ones.
Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas.
Just let go and Prajna comes.
Just let go.
All has been before.
And all will be again.
Wisdom beyond wisdom.
How sublime, this infinity.
How infinitely sublime.
Just let go.
“Where do you end
And I begin?”
It sounds so
romantic,
Until it’s
A dead cat
In the road.
Then it is
Most intimate…
It's really interesting when you stumble through old (or even recent but forgotten) writing and see what you discover.
Look at me with eyes that wish to see the truth.
Look at me with eyes that will see me for who I truly am.
Look at me with the desire for honesty and compassion.
Look at me with the longing for connection.
Look at me as the man I am,
And I will look at you, always and forever,
As someone I can trust.
I'm really happy that I'm okay with who I am in my life now. There is no substitute for honesty, especially about oneself.
It's interesting to me that I have a blog, yet there are more and more things I can't talk about here. Hmmm...
I'd write a poem, but all I'd be doing is steal words that already float through the air. Everything's either borrowed (if you're righteous and kind) or simply stolen in this world. I chose to borrow.
"Postcards From Cambodia"
By: Bruce Cockburn
From: You've Never Seen Everything (2003)
Abe Lincoln once turned to somebody and said,
"Do you ever find yourself talking with the dead?"
There are three tiny deaths heads carved out of mammoth tusk
on the ledge in my bathroom
They grin at me in the morning when I'm taking a leak,
but they say very little.
Outside Phnom Penh there's a tower, glass paneled,
maybe ten meters high
filled with skulls from the killing fields
Most of them lack the lower jaw
so they don't exactly grin
but they whisper, as if from a great distance,
of pain, and of pain left far behind
Eighteen thousand empty eyeholes peering out at the four directions
Electric fly buzz, green moist breeze
Bone-colored Brahma bull grazes wet-eyed,
hobbled in hollow of mass grave
In the neighboring field a small herd
of young boys plays soccer,
their laughter swallowed in expanding silence
This is too big for anger,
it’s too big for blame.
We stumble through history so
humanly lame
So I bow down my head
Say a prayer for us all
That we don’t fear the spirit
when it comes to call
The sun will soon slide down into the far end of the ancient reservoir.
Orange ball merging with its water-borne twin
below air-brushed edges of cloud.
But first, it spreads itself,
a golden scrim behind fractal sweep of swooping fly catchers.
Silhouetted dark green trees,
blue horizon
The rains are late this year.
The sky has no more tears to shed.
But from the air Cambodia remains
a disc of wet green, bordered by bright haze.
Water-filled bomb craters, sun streaked gleam
stitched in strings across patchwork land and
march west toward the far hills of Thailand.
Macro analog of Ankor Wat’s temple walls
intricate bas-relief of thousand-year-old battles
pitted with AK rounds
And under the sign of the seven headed cobra
the naga who sees in all directions
seven million landmines lie in terraced grass, in paddy, in bush
(Call it a minescape now)
Sally holds the beggar's hand and cries
at his scarred up face and absent eyes
and right leg gone from above the knee
Tears spot the dust on the worn stone causeway
whose sculpted guardians row on row
Half frown, half smile, mysterious, mute.
And this is too big for anger.
It’s too big for blame
We stumble through history so
humanly lame.
So I bow down my head,
say a prayer for us all.
That we don’t fear the spirit when it comes to call.
So this is the poem I asked to be included in our sangha poetry book. I wrote it after a powerful experience at Great Vow Zen Monastery on a Beginner's Mind retreat.
A Matter of Scale…
the snow was lovely
quiet treasure falling from dark, pregnant skies
in the early dawn
more silence than I deserve
I will strive not to squander this gift
this briefest of tastes
this cold, beautiful emptiness
as my wooden ears soften
to hear the almost imperceptible
yet completely distinctive sound
of
each
flake
crashing to its doom
up high in the trees
a chorus of innumerable, soft endings
a hushed requiem
a magical coda
to this symphony of silence
then a call
to once more
start again
from the top
this time
with feeling…
When one contemplates
The little things in life
One must remember
That there is
No such
Thing.
Everything is huge
Everything is all-important
Everything is intrinsic
Interconnected
Ever-present
Eternal
Infinite.
There is no such thing
That is not wholly and totally
What it is.
In that way
Everything we do
Everything we think
Everything we smell, touch, taste, hear and see
Everything we experience
Is really
And truly
All that we are.
Everything that is "me"
"you"
"us"
"we"
Is the Universe
Manifest.
And if that is not
The greatest of Miracles
Then I won't bother you
further...
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