May I continue to feel pain
May I only resolve to meet life unresolved
May I allow life to learn through me
And never try to become learned through life
May I never create within me any resistances
May I continue to make mistakes
May I persist in being
May I never seek to become
May I surrender to life and let it own me
And never aspire to make a life of my own.
May my weaknesses be the source of my strength
But never the source of my fear
May I continue to have hope
And may I continue to have my hopes crushed
May I continue to dream
And may I continue to have my dreams broken
May I be granted all of these things
And may I have them all taken away.
A Tree Named Desire
Desire is the name of a tree
With its roots within me
And growing outward
Into the world
Its branches of thoughts and feelings
Entangling me in a mesh of relationships.
Silent is my demeanor
But my heart is a perpetual stirring
Dancing on the waves
Of my restless mind
Which I’ve come to see
Is not made for settling down.
Yet good sense tells me
The sounds of the mind
Are a cacophony
Lacking metre and melody
And which must be arranged
By truer feeling, by measure, by design.
And so, it must be understood
That to deny the mind
Is to nod to character
And it is character
Which will prove to be
A higher genius and a truer friend
But the mind is an enticer
That puts to test all restraint
And so now I ask it
What it wants
And why it does
What it does
In response, these lines
Flow out of my pen
And true to the mind
They are fluid, effortless
But drawing now
From a deeper, richer soil
“Indeed, I know just desire
That is why I exist
…To allow for fruition
But it’s only under the steady glare of character
That your desires ripen
And by law fall to the earth
As the sweet fruits of your patience.”
Questions and Answers
In our questions
Lie our answers
We ask
Not because we don’t know
But because we do.
A Meaningful Story
Our stories disappear
And fade into quick oblivion
Leaving us with no meaning in our lives
Only to be reborn, reread and rewritten
By those who sense a resurgence of meaning
When they string together
Through strands of time
The charms of little nothings.
The problem is:
Nobody asks them
For whom stories have faded
What is it that keeps them from dying?
What remains in feeling, in essence, in residue?
Do they now understand reality?
And if they do…
Do they think it’s a meaningful story?
Placebo
The swallowed drink
With a shot of lime
Works its way within
And in no time
All my knots, my tensions
Come undone
I announce to the world
“I’m ready for some fun!”
“Life is good,” I say
And my mates agree
And we raise our
Glasses in cheer
We laugh, we tease
We jibe in fun
Crackling with wit
And intended pun
Much is spoken
Much is said
With great bravado
Without any dread
A drink permits
Both sinner and saint
To speak his heart
Without restraint
A tavern is a place
Designed for the game
Of people forgetting
All title and name
But all seasoned drinkers
A secret know
That the infamous drink
Is really a placebo.
Before You Entered, After You Left
I’ve seen events,
momentous as they were
fade away
I’ve been gripped by
affections, I thought were
for keeps
I’ve lost so much
to time, but I haven’t
lost presence…
I now understand
that the gifts
of time
Are not things
that are born and that
can die
But are those
that remain, when all
has left.
Time can’t take away
what it hasn’t
brought in.
See-through
I’ve come to see
That your kind words
Don’t stick
Neither do your opinions
Cause anything more than a fleeting awkwardness.
My deliverance from smallness-
(Sorry to disappoint you)-
Needs a more sophisticated design.
In a world of sound and fury
I wonder why silence exists
Why does it stay
And not leave?
Even when it is abused,
Ignored: not acknowledged
I befriend silence
And Understanding begins to claim its space within.
Now an expanse
It provides me with distance
And light
That can penetrate through smallness
And darkness
Your little schemes
Are not as tight in weave
As you think them to be.
Your body may be dressed
In fancy styles tailored to fit
But you are clueless about
The size and shape of your mind
Or its persona that challenges
Your ideas of who you are
Your little pretensions
Don’t cover it at all
You stand exposed
Your words are see-through.
Remembrance Is Not Memory
Unaware of my truth
I created memories
Memories of me
Memories of you
Memories of sorrow…
And now
These memories torment me
They remind me of
Why it’s safer
To collapse, to suffer, to hide…
I watch a bird
Fearlessly stand on the ledge
Confident
That the chance of falling
Poses no threat.
I wonder…
Just for a moment
What must I remember
To find my wings when
I’m standing on a ledge overlooking memory.
Sunset
The light that had pervaded
the experiences
That I have come to describe
as my life
Had gathered itself into
a saffron orb
And now it stood before me-
all wise and glowing
All earthly latitudes
and longitudes
Mapping it in a poetic alignment
with the strains of my heart.
What does all this mean
I wondered…
Why is my life on a sprint
Appearing…disappearing…?
Why does my day begin
and end?
Why do our lives begin
and end?
What dawns and
What sets?
What exactly is gained and
what precisely is lost?
It’s in space and light that
my days unfold
And the stories that have
begun today
Will advance in plot
and complexity
Over days infused with
new light
But will I know
any better?
If not a day like this
What will a day of wisdom look like?
And now I’m thinking of
new questions
Does light have hope?
Do I disappoint her?
Does she expect me to meet her
with less indifference?
In what light must I see-
the light of the day?
Now that the day stands condensed before me
as the setting sun
I’m wondering about all the darkness
It has left me with…
Light will merge into light
It’s darkness that will live yet again
For a life-span of a night.
Sshhh…
Sshhh…
I’m trying to hear you
Behind the incoherence of your words
You dress them up in so many layers
They muffle up your meanings.
What do I make of your anger?
What do I make of your smile?
I’m trying to learn your speak
I’m trying to decode your spirit
The heart and mind-
They speak different languages
And somewhere in between
Lies your essence
You lie in between two warring worlds
A victim…
Of melting feelings and frozen expression.
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 