Morning 9/29/17

Where does the world begin
If you can find the point
at which it starts
will you learn more
than you expected


Comfortable within moving patterns
of recognition
Shapes
sights and
behaviors
we have seen before
What is there to be learned
within the familiar
All we know is not known to us
There lies more beyond
the surface
How much further
How much deeper
It is there
It is there
waiting to be seen

Morning 9/28/17

Should I be afraid to call you beautiful
I think of you but leave these thoughts
quiet inside

Shall I always be myself
in this body

Living with imperfection
though trying for betterment

To indulge or abstain
to purify or taint

In memory I hold you close
as memory can allow
Younger days and fallen tears
Our lives grown separate
through passing years
Recalling a night of final parting
holding you close by the light
of the quiet harbor
Neither of us wanted to part
but we did
To choose freely
To inflict a hurt on ourselves
Though love
an affection
still lingers on
in past life memory

i had to stop pretending to be
everything i've never been
everything gets old and outdated
even me even you

Morning 9/27/17

sunrise in my heart
dawn is birthed behind my eyes
alive once again


Before day is done
what truth do you wish to know
In your heart you seek answers
you've already been given

Pray for a good life
Make your life a good life
Pray for health
Pray for healing
Live well

Morning 9/26/17

fragile peace but peace none the less

The normal and mundane
You settle for what you have
Do you ever desire for more than this
This life flows through you
What will you do with it
While it yet still moves?

Together yet so far apart
Is this really what it seems
Heartache and suffering by so many
Can we be so oblivious to our kin

All divisions are artificial
Blinded by shortsightedness
We are better than this
Toss insecurity aside
Open your heart

Querida de mi corazon
Te extrano con cada dia que pasa

What are you listening for?
What do you need most?

Become the waters from which life emerged.

A self greater than mere body.

Spring and Summer will always pass.
Fall and Winter will always pass.

Men of No Country

We have no choice into what nation we are born,
what time in history we come into, and who our parents
are. We have no choice if we are born into a time of
peace or war. We have no choice if we are born with
many material advantages or none. We are not responsible
for the past glories of our nation of origin. We are only
responsible for our actions towards ourselves and to others.
There have always been and will always be leaders who
do not speak for the people but rather, speak out in ways
that harm many of those whom they allegedly protect.
Human history is littered with tiny men who have desired
to be loved and acclaimed by the rightness of their vision
but whose vision was always fundamentally flawed.
Better people than me have summed things up in this way:
"All origins are accidental." - Fugazi

Ashram

Calling out in prayer
the names of God
Rhythm and repetition
Voices become one
Exalting that which
is present and unseen

Emerge from the shadows of delusion
Step into the light which reveals truth

These sounds bring peace and stillness
to the beating heart of the waking day

Colossus of Rhodes

Standing guard over the entry to the harbor
a beacon of civilization and art
it too fell to the forces of nature as
all things do as all things must
Memory stains the story of history
as it lives on through the tales
of what had once long ago been

Listening In

The gaze must turn inward
The path winds through our life
and mind and we must
follow that which leads us through
To be alive and mindful
of that which courses through us
that which propels us forward
To be more than the body
which holds us to this world
Seeking that which transcends
the self and gives life
to the unseen soul of us
I profess to be nothing more
than a student watching and
interacting with this life
I desire to be more compassionate
and understanding of others
I know this time is fleeting
and wish to nurture that
which matters most
To wake from sleep and
to fall into it is merely to
travel between worlds
I close my eyes and listen to
mother's voice as she heals me
Together in this place
We must grow together
Creation is life

The Author

With each passing moment
we are writing word after word
sentence after sentence
and page after page
into the book of our lives

Small actions
Big thoughts
Hopes
Aspirations
Failures
Pure and
impure thoughts
Kindness and
cruelty
That which
builds and
diminishes

All thoughts and actions
accruing into a story
we are aware of

Hoping for change
we must write it
we must live it

Do not let the pages
cut the skin of your fingers

Bleed when necessary
Create always
Create all ways

what speaks through us

to create balance within
the mind and soul
to create balance within
the body and heart
this pursuit is never ending
how could it be so
age has taught me of the
shortcomings of my past
i am a student of this life
and still seek enlightenment
in each passing day
i listen to the wind
i listen to the waves
i listen to the rustling branches
of the trees all around me
i listen to the stillness
within mine own heart
this life moves the blood
through my body
gives rise to the thoughts
and words in my mind
let me grow in greater compassion
let me grow in greater understanding
let me grow in greater forgiveness
i wish to be more human and humane

Morning 9/21/17

Memories I do not wish to forget
though the days stretch longer behind us
Quiet moments in private places
acting as two people together do alone

What happens when the thoughts are unleashed
and the mind lets itself flow freely through
unencumbered fingers Is it possible to truly let
thought emerge with no block To emerge as
whole as possible I do not know but I am trying
to see if it is Childhood and adulthood are colors
melting into the same canvas creating new shades
of what had once been Where do old habits begin
Change is difficult when we attempt to enact it
ourselves and it is also difficult when it is thrust
upon us

You're hidden in my skin You wear it well
The words are all wrong when you speak
It rains slowly and softly You don't bother
with an umbrella Let it fall Let it fall

Morning 9/20/17

I'd try to be someone else
but I'd just lose myself
and that'd be no good for me

Walking into morning light
I see you coming down
the other end of the street
I see you wave and I wave
back to you

All paths circle and wind
back together again
Walk far enough and we'll
be here once more
I can't forget that which
we've suffered through

Morning 9/19/17

The Melancholy of Summer Passing

If Summer were our youth
we would mourn it's passing all the same

We fall in love and lust
with the image of the body
yet rarely in those moments
of base desire consider the
power of the unseen lives
within that give life to the
corporeal visage we see

To Listen

Begin by listening
What should I listen for
Listen to the stillness within
How can I do that
Find a time and place to be
alone and quiet
Once you are there
be quiet
close your eyes
and it will come
What if it doesn't
It will
even if you don't
realize it
Then what
That's for you
and only you
to know
and decide
Trust in yourself
and listen
and when the time
is right
act

Another Awakening

You wake up and you realize
you are dying
It doesn't bother you
as much as you would think
You are not dying from illness
or accident at the moment
merely the accretion of days
behind you but dying
is dying nonetheless
You wait for the sun
to peer through the gray
hazy morning but it has
been unable to do so
You put on a sweater
for a little extra warmth
You sit and listen
to nothing at all
to everything at all

First Song

He's pacing the stage as the band finishes setting up
behind him. His thin black sports coat fits well with
his faded black dress pants. Both have survived many
nights that have started like this. The bass player is
looking at him while the drummer is impatiently
rapping his fingers on his snare drum. The guitarist looks
up to let them know he's almost done tuning. The sound
guy lets them know he's ready whenever they are. Drake
stops pacing for a moment to give him the thumbs up.
The guitar player nods at him. He glances over at his
keyboard player set up next to his backing vocalist Nancy.
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen. We're Mutual Fools."
Four clicks on the hi-hat and the music began. The wash
of color from the stage lights might as well have been
the barometer for their souls. The room swelled and filled
with the sound of a band roaring to life. Drake moved
side to side across the stage with the microphone grasped
firmly in hand. Each gesture of his hands and body
accented the music in a way no punctuation could alter
the words on a page. They moved in perfect time as
the music moved from verse to chorus, to verse to chorus
to bridge and chorus. Nancy looked as glamorous as
an old time movie starlet with her sequined dress hugging
her body tight as she sang and played the tambourine.
As the final beat of the song approached Drake turned
his back to the audience and threw the mic straight into
the air. Without looking he reached for it in air and caught
it as the final beat landed with the power of pure conviction.  

Fusion

Wake up when you wake up
when you wake up
wake up

Consciousness has been here
even when you weren't

Images take on life in abstract
palette tones

Memory fuses with unconscious
desire

An imagined life lived in unseen
places

Say the word 'sky' and purple
colored horizon emerges

over a land of kaleidoscope
colors

begging to exist but too beautiful
for this world

Gray hazy morn greets your
open eyes

Imagined memories will not
leave you

Yet was it truly imagined

if memory remains

by morning

grief

when we speak of loss
what is it we are actually speaking of
the dead can no longer be bothered
by our grief or indifference
once they have joined
the endless stream of matter
when we speak of loss
we speak of our grief
and the lack of what once was
we speak of the desire
to live in the memory of life
our grief is a duality
of acceptance and longing
for what can no longer be
grief will come again
and it will be so in our lives
until we ourselves
are the subject of another's grief

Everyone is Broken and Suffering.

Will i just be a footnote in the tragedy of your life?

movement

moving slowly
as if trapped in honey
rhythm seeps into
bone and flesh
soon enough
you don't resist
and move and
move and move
to the universe
finding itself
within you

Don't Believe It

I told her I don't believe in love
She loved me anyway
Just to prove a point
And I'm just a fool
To hold on to my beliefs
And not know when
I've been proven wrong
I told her I loved her
And she said I don't believe you
I said it doesn't matter
I don't believe in love anyway
We agreed and loved
 Each other anyway

Convergence

Heat of summer nights

Daylight trapped within walls

All plans laid undone

Dark waves rolling in 

Still shores at rest

Breathing quietly

Where does the darkness

of sky and ocean converge

Unified into a point

far beyond the horizon

Looking and looking

Finding no answer

Those Who Watch

The angels are watching and listening
You don't think
You don't worry about
much because of this
You wonder what they think
as they look upon us
and see what we do
and how we treat one another
Do they judge us harshly
for our inhumanity
to one another
or do they leave
the judging
to another divine being
They do not speak to us
but they are watching
or so some would
have us believe
I'll not worry
about any of this
I have a life to lead
and so does
everyone

Reality Not Myth

You wake up sober
because you haven't been drinking
and you begin to feel bad
for all the writers and artists
over time immemorial
who have fallen to the false
promise of drink
and built their myths
on the power
of this escapism
Fuck forever
Fuck immortality
Give me a good nights sleep
and feeling alive
at the hour of my waking
each day

morning 9/12/17

Children of the summer

returning back to school

mothers happy and anxious

children curious and unsure

What happened to the life I had seen

or was promised

How much must we make 

to live and survive

The years are aging me and

I don't know how many are left

I try to be the good man

as often as I can

Time is passing

and leaving me behind

This life will not

look back if we are left 

in the rearview mirror

Every So Often

Every morning
I ask myself if
I am a reincarnation
of a past self
come once more
into this living world
This opportunity
to exist
comes only so often
Who could turn
this chance at
life and beauty

Bear & Wolf

The Bear & The Wolf

I don't need feathers to fly
or wings to flap

Modern Boredom
numbing me asleep

Lover whom I will never forget

Conscious thoughts given birth through
nailed digits This life of growth and decay
Your childhood left you stranded in this
strange place where all sights are familiar
and unrecognizable The path is revealed
and concealed at every step Let the mind
unfurl itself through an unclouded body

elemental cosciousness

unsteady weariness from within
and without
i live yet i rot
returning to essential elements
no need to be buried
i'll turn to dust
     scatter in the wind
consciousness expands
                       as I
join / dissolve
into everything
I had hoped
to be

Morning 9/9/17

With each sunrise I must remember my personal
capacity to change. It becomes hard for me to
remember this sometimes after ages of living in
a fairly set routine.

Could I have ever given you the life you deserved?

Exert the control and willpower you have proven
yourself capable of through the years.

Remembering love that once blossomed.

What is broken can still be
                         healed
                                    forgiven

Finding the light of a spiritual practice.
Defining that which gives me hope and
allows me to aspire to a greater manner
of existing.

Drinking? Why?

Foolish capacity for perpetuating bad habits

I woke up in much the same way I do most mornings.
Is this right? Is this boring? Am I sick of feeling this
way? I am no fool, though, I do foolish things. Absent
the love I seek I fill myself with foolish waters to live
my days and nights. I am better than this. Too often I
have felt need for it when it was unnecessary. There is
a cycle of depression, drinking, and dependency I have
let take too large a grasp on me. They feed off of each
other and keep me in this locked cycle as long as I
choose to keep perpetuating it. It is easy to tell myself
to stop these bad habits, it's only words, it is so much
more difficult to wean the body and mind of the
foolish comforts we have grown accustomed to.
To change this habit of drinking is to begin to change
the other habits and insecurities that plague my life.
Each action, each decision is one tied to another.
No action exists in a vacuum. All my choices live
with one another. How to be the better person in
mind, body, and spirit, that I have always seen my
self to be? By choices made once and followed
upon in order to create new patterns of choice and
health. I have noticed my habit has moved into the
realm where the pleasure of it feels dwarfed by my
need to maintain it. It is growing boring but I have
continued to perpetuate it to my own detriment.
Change the choices you make, change your life.
You are afraid. Deep inside it worries you. Remind
yourself of the strength of which you are capable of.
Try to always live and act as honestly to yourself as
you are capable of.

states

Time is
Time was
Time present
Time past
Time future
Too much or
Not enough
Never enough
Present now
Uncertain future
Present now
Here and
Now and
Here and

Morning 9/7/17

Does morning rise within you?

Morning 9/6/17

What Thoughts Are Possible
When One Truly Opens The Mind?

The door swings open but I am unsure
if I am ready to walk through.

Morning 9/5/17

When I began to float away I felt fine.
I became used to it fairly quickly.
And so I existed floating through this
world and watching it from above.
As time went on I began to miss being
on the ground. I missed walking and
running and the simple things of our
lives. I began to search for gravity
but it was not as easy as one would
hope.

Suffer the disease
Heal yourself
You have always
had the cure

it is far too easy to maintain
a life just comfortable enough
to survive but not enough to
grow and blossom fully

Grief will haunt you as long as necessary.

I needed that conversation.
I need you to talk to about life
and the last week or so.
Did I need as many drinks,
probably not.

Only I can create the change within myself
that I truly desire. No one can give it to me.

Phantom heart.

This world is our mirror.

This world is flame and ash.
New soil will grow new life.
Everything burns until
the flame is spent.

NOW is both declarative and imperative.

Mourning After.

The desire to close all windows and doors
to the outside world and only come out once
the tempest has passed.

Many Lives Remembered

I remember all my past lives when I wish
though I do not wish it often. Echoes of
previous lives dot my days, a familiar
smell, a particular flower coming into
view, that sometimes I find it hardly
believable that I am able to accomplish
anything. Births, deaths, all come in and
out of view along with faded heartache
that is dull to the touch. Born again for
how many times now? I have forgotten
how many times I have come and gone
but I will continue on until at last I have
been unchained from the wheel of life.
What comes then? Freedom? Wisdom?
Enlightenment? Omniscience? I suppose
it doesn't really matter. To move beyond
and into that which is unknowable.

The Final Dream

Everything was on fire and the mountains were
shrouded by clouds of ash. People could not stand
the heat but had nowhere to go. People sweated
through their clothes and even the waters at the
beaches provided no relief. The sky was ashen
gray and the sun struggled to pierce the veil.
Daylight began to mimic night and people and
animals began to sleep fitfully. Time seemed as
though it was beginning to unspool but where
was it unspooling from? Minutes and hours
began to feel indistinct from one another. So
it seemed that everything was feeling apart.
Nothing could hold. The heat began to drive
people mad but everyone understood why.
Violence and crime began to infect every
where all at once as if it were a virus. Blood
shed on the streets and in homes. No place
was immune from this furious season. Yet
the tides at the beaches continues to come in
and out. The moon would occasionally peer
through from the sky and grow horrified at
what she could see. The sun grew indifferent
at what it had to witness. Some said it was
the end of times, that Jesus was about to
return but He never did. God gave no
booming proclamation from heaven to His
children. In fact, some people said He had
forgotten us, that was why everything was
happening, to punish us for our sins. It did
not stop the sinning. The people howled for
relief, for salvation, but none would ever
come. Weeks and months went by in this
fashion until at last years began to pass.
Our population thinned but the madness
and violence only continued. The gray days
taunted us with the possibility of pure
sunlight but it never came. What few
children were born into this time, many
were sickly and died. Few lived but those
that did were hardened in a way their
parents could never be. I began to wonder
if things would ever change, if we would
ever return to the life we all led before.
I realized I was a fool for thinking we
could ever return to such a state. And if we
ever did it would be many lifetimes removed
from my own. I survived, we survived
as best we could, as long as we could.
And when the day came I could no longer
bear the weight of being I found the standing
body of a dead tree, it's branches stripped
of leaves, sat down on the ground, leaned
my back into its trunk and closed my eyes.
I began to dream until I dreamt no more.

Bethany

Bethany was awake
She listened to the church bells
toll through the calm morning
How many times in her life
had she heard that sound
How much longer would
she hear them
She tried to not think
of the answer
She thought of all
the little things she had
to do today
and understood that
life is really nothing but
little things punctuated on
occasion but larger events
that were the exceptions and
not the rule
She looked at the clock on her
nightstand and thought it odd
when she looked at it's face
Turns out it just needed
to be wound up again
Time didn't matter
The hour didn't matter
Only her own actions mattered
In this long and vast life
those moments of small joys
were what mattered
She thought this and
was pleased with herself
She looked at her clock
and even though
the time was wrong
she pulled the sheets up
over her body
and let her eyes close

What is remembered

always lives on

Innerwaves

Waves are cycling back and forth
on the shores of my mind
Thoughts crash on the sand
and recede back into the ocean
only to return again in new forms
How long can these thoughts last
Can it be that it could last a lifetime
I close my eyes and listen
Waves coming in and out
from a hidden beach

Jewel

My broken heart still beats
because it must
It has survived before
and it will survive again
I cannot forget
I will not forget
how this crack came to be
It is now an eternal part of me
To honor a life and memory
It will endure
in the sanctuary of my heart

Summer Has Yet to Fade

The fan has been whirring all night
All we can talk about is the heat
Windows wide open
Fan oscillating back and forth
Summer heat has yet to yield
to cooler days of approaching autumn
You drink and you drink
and it doesn't matter what you drink
your body continues to sweat and thirst
Some miles away a fire consumes
swaths of land as if collecting
on a debt that had yet to be paid
Some will ask
Why me
Why us
The better thing to wonder is
Why us
Why not
Dawn has broken
and the relentless sun
is readying itself
once more

Thoughts After Broken-Hearted Days

Summer will not surrender
these dying days
to Fall without a fight.

Words are not enough
Tears are not enough
to express my grief
I feel the absence
of a former presence
hover around me
This is the natural order
of life-
aging and dying
holding on as long
as we can

I don't need to know the contents
of every heart in the world
just my own.

To heal a broken heart.

Where will this journey take us?
Where has it taken us already?
So many miles and with
how much time to go?

I am sad and will probably be feeling this way for a while.
That's ok. I'd rather the pain of the loss linger. An unseen
reminder of what a life meant to me.