conversations with poets p. 2

X:
Oh poet o poet, you stole all the lyrics, left none for me. Inspiration is gone and no longer comes easily. Oh muse of music, now it is my turn to hold the key

Y:
Oh mirror o mirror, the lyrics are the shell, what they hold is everlasting. Inspiration is a well that runs deeper than the deepest well in the world, older than the oldest star in the universe, and as long as there are those to contemplate Reality's ineffable effulgence, inspiration will never run dry.

Origins

Whether we are God's creation

Progeny of Adam and Eve

Or children of the stars

And the stepping stones of evolution 

Whether everything 

Or nothing is a miracle

Whether scientists discover the origin of our Universe

Or theologians find irrefutable evidence of God 

Whether alchemy or aliens

Whether intelligent design

Or evolutionary theory

At one point

Something arose 
From Nothing

Whether it was the Big Bang or Seven Days

At one point

Everything as we know it 
Materialized from absolutely nothing

And that is all I need to know

There are holes big enough for our Universe 

within the theories and understanding of men

Whether they wear white lab coats or ceremonial robes

Most sell false gold coated in certainty

So give me no gold, certainty or white robes

Take me away from everything

That takes me away from this

Each moment, each breath
A reminder of that pre-eternal dance
From Nothing to Something

ruminations p 1

...I peered into the mirror and saw you...

...Instead of a heart, she had a mirror,
everyone who looked at her saw a reflection of themselves...

...The ugliest thing a mirror can show you is yourself...

..In my lover's memory, I traced a path completely my own...

...There is no rose without thorns...

...Hold me like your Starbucks in winter...

...I am not made of ice, to melt from a little salt...

...Falling in and out of fuck...

...The most beautiful thing a mirror can show you is yourself...

...If it bleeds, let it...

...I just went through a whole day, and I'm still asleep...

...If it beats, don't stop...

...I slept through the snooze, rushed to work, and when I got there
my dream said wake the fuck up...


...We're all stories waiting to be granted an audience...

Sea of the moment

A hush gently drapes the early morning, like mist
over everything there is a dull glow
like headlights through thick fog.
Within this sleepy silence
there appears no movement
only a kind of effortless sway
a serene dance between light and shadow,
tree leaf and grass blade; heartbeat,
breath and each blink of the eye.

Sitting here witness to the blossoming sea of the moment
I can't help but ask
why move unnecessarily?
Why assume that I really know better?
Why grasp? Why move away from this moment?
Why impose myself onto this magnificent mural,
this bewildering tapestry that I can scarcely understand? 

I just want to be as here as possible
I just want to be as me as possible.

And when I run that course
I turn around and stop running.
One by one, I remove every article of clothing,
every trinket that I have collected along this road
and one by one, those memories slip from my fingers
and the wind carries away the pieces of my heart.

Migrating birds

Somehow, I've always known what is to be done.
This life, this chance of beautiful breath
can not be lived for my sake alone.
I can not subsist by myself
this I know.
Where I'm going, feet won't take me
shoes and shawl can offer no comfort.
Where I'm going, memories do not follow.
So before this body's time is up
I would ask for wings from my dreams
to fly my soul to that final destination.

confessions p 20

I always believed beauty was in the effortless dance
of a leaf caught in the breeze, a laughing rose
the revolving night sky, serene passing of clouds
and the slow growth of root to branch to fruit...
But effortlessly, is how I want to waltz and tango through these killing fields
Effortlessly, is how I want to bleed.

confessions p 19

I want to kiss someone who has tasted darkness
fall in love with the heartbroken
and drink with one who has known thirst.

***

I want to break bread with you
and hit the road with you.

I want to rush through a day with you
only to watch the stars on our backs at night.

I want to work up an appetite with you
See the sweat gather and glisten on your skin
The sun reflected in the hieroglyphics of your irises.

I want to watch your calves clench
as your toes tell the stories of your swaying hips to the earth.

I want to share a meal with you
when we're both hungry and there's not much food.

I don't need to know how you got your scars
but I want to see how you carry them.

I want to see you when you're alone with your soul.

I want to hear all the frequencies of your voice
I want to know what keeps you up at night
what drives you and what lies at the heart of your heart.

I want to take in your silences
and taste the salt of your tears.
I want to see you in all your colors
your arrays of yellows, blues and reds
I want all your shades of black and white
your purples, your bruises
and the scarlet of your scars.
Don't you dare hold back such beautiful history from me.

Thank you p. 2

Today, I am at peace
I slept a full night
With a full belly, under warm covers
and the roof of a friend
I arose in the morning with red breasted robins
To a mid Spring sky
I rode a bike through a park of tulips
And wooden bridges winding along a canal
I felt the mist from the falls
Everywhere there was light
Through the fingers of a child chasing butterflies
On the tip of my lashes when I faced the sun
Glinting off passing cars and bicycle handles
Like the slow streak of meteorites in a time lapse video.

Smoked out

Smoke ribbons under lamp light
Dance and drag coiling skirts
Behind a cherry orbit

***

Love is like a joint
It can't stay in one hand for long.
So take a few tokes
And pass it to the person closest to your left rib.

Conversations with the heart p. 1

Heart, I said
what do you need to tell me your final destination?

Shall I find a clearing in this forest of limbs where each instant,
there are dozens of branches reaching out to meet your touch?
Shall I dispose of the old water in this bottle
so we will have no other choice but to find a fresh spring?

Heart, you are my guide to the unseen,
I am blind and you are my seeing dog.

Heart, I whispered
sometimes I am afraid of your destination.
So I pretend you are the destination.

You know where you are going
you were carved from the walls of your former home
you sing with the memory of its hallowed halls
and to your former home you shall return, whole.

But you are heavy with half-loves I have forgotten to forsake.
I have kept you prisoner to a sea of endings forever born,
held you in a perpetual Autumn
warmed with only last winter's dying coals.

Every moment,
there are tens of thousands of souls rushing into this world.
Every moment, there are tens of thousands of worlds
fading into the white and black of memory.

Heart,
as much as I try to keep you fettered and caged
I felt you stir free like the wind this morning.

Heart,
I felt the kiss of the morning sun today and forgot how to breathe.

***
to be continued

conversations with poets p. 1

X:

I had a vision of leaking light from a wound, as though dying. The only way I could reconcile the pain was from bleeding all that light out into everything I was doing. Somehow I know that is the only way I will find peace. 

Y:

That was not death but birth. That which you were was escaping to illuminate the world around it.

X:

A guru of sorts told me to find guidance in the line "let me die, and become the breath of the breathless." I need to die. I need it like so many waking hours need sleep. I need it like life. And I've been up so long, eating and drinking past my fill, stealing light from the early morning hours. 

Y:

There is no death. Only change. And change you will. 

I know why they cry sometimes

I remember

you were sitting on your knees 

in a bathtub half full of water

and I was standing on my toes 

watching the mascara run down your face

as you held me in your mouth.

Knees trembling, my whole body quivering

like a tightly drawn bowstring

and I had to hang onto the curtain rod for balance.

Still on your knees, you arched your back and sat up

your mouth swelling with the storm gathering inside me

hanging on by my fingertips, my legs shaking uncontrollably 

my mouth, as incapable of speech as yours.

When I finally came like rain after a drought

a flood, a tsunami, dumbstruck

as waves of the ocean's roar shook my body

like a leaf. Unable to stand, I collapsed on the toilet bowl

and I remember feeling an overwhelming need to cry or laugh

and not knowing how you'd take the tears

I laughed and I laughed, like thunder 

from dry storm clouds finally granted release.