Gauzy

I dreamt I heard you speak.
The words were separated
as they left your mouth.
I watched them as tufts
of gauzy letters
                         floating
away from you.
You didn't notice or
you didn't mind.
I listened and watched
and marveled
                      at you
and your beautiful

words.

Invoke / Exalt

Drone and chant
Drone and chant
Words from our lips
become a steady stream
Words from our lips
become a steady stream
Drone and chant
Drone and chant
Our hands moving
together in time
Our hands moving
together in time
Calling out their names
Calling out their names
Invoke the Gods
by their many names
Invoke the Gods
by their many names
Drone and chant
Drone and chant
Find the voice
of the universe
within yourself
Find the voice
of the universe
within yourself

Art

If you make Art
do not wait
for the World
to accept it
or accept you

If you make Art
then make your Art
as often as you can
Let nothing deter you
in this pursuit

If you make Art
then you will know
what it means
to struggle in search
of what others
deem to be foolish

If you make Art
then you will grow
your heart and spirit
in ways others
can only imagine

If you make Art
you are always
reaching for connection
and you will find it
and others will find you

If you make Art
then you will live on
in brief immortality
until all memory of us
is erased

If you make Art
press forward
relentlessly
until at last
only Death itself
can put your
hands to rest

where is the future

it is no place we can go

always here and now

The Word

There was the Word
and the Word was Life.

Life sprang from Nothingness
and soon the Nothingness

was filled with Everything
and Everything covered All

And soon the years passed
and more and more Nothingness

was filled and eventually
the people that grew to live

in the Nothingness that was
now filled by Everything

filled the world even more
with younger and younger

generations of themselves
all across their home

And so it generation after
generation until Everything

fell away and all that was
left once more was the Word

Traverse

Together but apart but
Together but apart but
Together is what matters

Love can exist and change
and change with us

Thinking of us
Thinking of how I was
A foolish young man
in love with you
and who still is

My love has changed
but it is love none the less

I see you now as you are
Daughter Mother Wife
Your smile is still the same
Your heart is still pure

I still love you
I always will

The tides have come in
and my heart has grown
and still it grows

Morning 1/27/18

Morning at last!
I see you and
you are happy.
For that I am
grateful.
To see you once
more and know
your life has
flowered
is a gift
I am
grateful for.

Your love will change.
You will change.
Your love will change
Because you have changed.

You have learned to love and let go.
You have learned to be happy
when those you love are happy.
You have learned that the heart
cannot have all it desires.
You have learned to embrace
the love that is there and
the warmth that it can bring.
You have learned to
grow your heart.

The only forgiveness you need
is from yourself
if you can manage it.

Daybreak

At last
Dawn has come.

What is there
To be done today?

Living
Breathing

Living
Breathing

Ceaseless
Movement

Student

I asked myself
what is it I must learn
from this life

Kindness
Honesty
Forgiveness
Freedom from
that which
obscures
the soul

There is more
There is always more

Lessons presented to me
Perpetual student

Readying myself
before the next life

Morning 1/24/18

I pray though I don't know if it works.
Does it matter to whom I pray?
God, Krishna, Allah, the Old Gods,
if my prayers reach any one
that is enough.
The silence in my heart
listening to these intentions.

Blessings of the Witch

Remove the fog from my heart
And embrace the contemplative spirit
growing within
Breathe in
Exhale
Feel the very force of life
within you

Strange

I wake with my heart pounding in nervousness.
I start to focus my breathing.
Breathing in.
Breathing out.
Here.
Now.
It begins to slow.
How many mornings
have started in this way?
Enough. This morning is here.
Soft blue sky has emerged from the darkness.

What are the birds saying today?
I do not care to ask but I can hear
them in the trees.

Sitting here with my thoughts and memories,
over thinking choices I've made and have
yet to make.

Human creatures.
Such strange things we are.

I'm sure God is equally strange.

And Love

I would say she has the voice of an angel
but that wouldn't be accurate.
Her voice isn't beautiful in a way
that's conventional
but that doesn't matter to me.
Why should it?
It's her thoughts and the words
she uses that I love.
And I love her.
And she loves me.
I am imperfect in so many ways
yet she loves me
and she loves me
and I love her.

Morning 1/22/18

Did you sleep well?
Do you remember your dreams?
Beautiful, unseen things
beneathe your eyes
in the haze of sleep

And now?
Here?
Yes.
What now?

Did I fall asleep into this dream?
How can I understand
my own consciousness?

Morning 1/21/18

Our dreams could be much more
than we have believed.
Imagine
if dreams are not merely streams
flowing from unconscious minds
but are in fact
brief windows into other layers
of hidden reality

And I hear the silence
ringing through my ears
And I can't stand it
So I speak
to hear my own voice
speaking to no one at all

A slave to your own pain.

Where the road ends
The path continues
Where the path ends
Keep walking

Morning 1/20/18

The Palm Trees Are Singing Like The Ocean.

Take off your clothes
Take off your mask
I'll do the same

And the past becomes new again
Living in the present
Unable to forget
What has come before

On Friday 1/19/18

Forgotten Crosses

Will the flames consume us whole?

What is liberation?
What is freedom?
Are we striving towards
the ultimate in both?
Transcend body.
How? What path?

We are living in a time of lies and fear.

Doors opening and closing
We pass through and back
Yet what distances do we cross
I am here
I am here

Living with myself
Trying to be good
Trying to not fall into my own traps
Trying to not fall into despair
Reaching out
This world
Home and hell

Pendulum

What does it take for us to change
what has seemed unchangeable?
How much must we suffer
before we look with honesty?
We all share in this shame and guilt.
We can be compelled but what
moves us to act?

Live and suffer for money.
Idol worship of fools and folly.
Man created and destroyed
by our own economy imagined.

Does not all of Man desire not
a place to live, but a home?

The mistakes we have birthed
have matured and birthed ones
of their own.

We search ceaselessly for answers.
They are here. They are here.
We have seen them and turned
them away but they are here.

Can we move towards a better union?

Caught between hope and
hopelessness.

Swing of a pendulum.

memory fragment

Your memory is carved into me.
It cannot be undone, nor,
would I wish it to be.

What is it about our past that
continues to keep itself tied to us?

Is it the prospect of our youth
and what we could have done with it?

Is it promises we failed to keep
or ones we should have broken?

Morning 1/17/18

The simplest things can be the most difficult.

Did you sleep well?
Was it the first time in months
you fell asleep with an unclouded mind?

Hopeless Materialist

Morning 1/16/18

Mornings are for waking and writing.

When you wake up
you can make a choice
that will effect the rest of your day.

Choose clarity.

If the mind is ready
the body will be as well.

You close your eyes and you focus.
You breath and you focus.
You close your eyes and you focus.
You breath and you focus.

The healing voice of the Universe
is our Goddess mother comforting us.

Dawn becomes the Day.

Understanding The Body

You are more than this body, though,
it has taken much time
to realize this, to fully understand this.

Within this body you exist.
Within this body you experience.
Within this body you are.

Such a simple thing!
Yet how fraught it can all be.

Existing in a place we never chose.

Yet we exist all the same.
This is the gift and tension.

To make the best of all this
is what me must do, and
I confess of it's difficulty.

You are more than this body, though,
of that much I am now sure.
How true it is of all of us.

Tumbling Act

The words will tell you when they need to get out.
They will speak and you will recognize
the urgency of the voices in which they speak.
You do not get to choose the time
or place at which this will occur.
It doesn't work like that and it never will.
You must simply be ready to accept the gift
at all times at all places.
You will understand why as they tumble out
in an abundance as they trip over your fingers
in their clumsiness to emerge in an ecstatic order.
And then, at last, when they are settled on the page,
you will marvel at their grace and wonder
how they managed to wind up there in such a way.

Song of Morning

Can you hear me, My Lord?
Can you hear all your children in the morning?
What is it that you wish to say?

Sing a song in the morning
Bring this body from rest
Greet the sky turning away from darkness
I am here
We are here
Together in this world
This place
Our home
This place
These moments
Drops of rain
in the desert

Sleep / Wake Variations

If you are awake because you cannot sleep
then stay awake until you can sleep
and when you sleep you will dream
as though you were awake.

There is so much I am yet learning about myself.
There is so much I am yet learning about my weaknesses.
There is so much I am yet learning about my strength.
There is so much I am yet learning about my capacity for change.

Have I decided that enough is enough?
Yes, I feel that now inside.
It is now I begin to unravel myself
from where I have sewn myself into.

There are things I have been telling myself
And now these thoughts wish to be realized.
It is time to take the internal world and give
it life in this world of the body.

The contemplation of early morning is the
contemplation held over from dreams.
It is the contemplation that is ether longing
to gain existence in this world.

I am awake and feel a type of peace and
understanding about what I must do today.
It is a simple thing. It is so simple that
merely abstaining will be the doing.

I am awake and ready.
I am awake and ready.
I am awake and ready.
I am awake and ready.

The Human Need For Hate

Peace In These Modern Times

Morning 1/15/18

Wake before the edge of dawn

How can the finite understand the infinite?
This is a fundamental problem at the heart of humanity.
We are beings that are born into bodies and minds
that are subject to time and age. We grasp at larger
thoughts yet can never fully comprehend the vastness
that they entail. Is it possible that only the infinite can
understand the infinite? What would it take for a finite
being to be able to fully grasp the infinite?

Am I trapped in this cage? It is my choice as to how
comfortable this cage can be.

If God spoke to you and named you a prophet
would you believe? If you accepted this and went
into the world would anyone else believe you?
Does God speak to us in the manner still?

The depth of the soul is endless.

The sky changes her face once more.

All lives will become memory.

Morning Monologue

I woke up before she did so I made sure to not disturb
her as I got out of bed. Standing in our room I felt the
slight chill of a winter morning that had been staved off
by our bodies beneathe the sheets. The traces of light
that would become the dawn were making themselves
known. She was breathing softly and no doubt warmer
than myself. What was she dreaming? Even if she woke
up right then she might not remember or might not want
to say. I know that would have been the case with me. I
do not usually remember dreams but on occasion I do.
Our minds are ceaseless in their inventiveness and work.
But are dreams merely that? Are they truly just the mind
unbound playing self-generated films for us? Would it be
too strange to perhaps interpret these as visions of past
lives or other states of existence for which we have no
rational explanation? I surely don't have an answer for
that. She sleeps and dreams. I am awake and no longer
dreaming. What if we were merely lives caught in the
dream of some other sleeping being in the universe?
That might be a stretch but I cannot disprove it. Then
again, a rational mind has no need to worry but how
rational are we at any given time?

The Search

We are born to search
through these years of our lives
Yet we can never fully define
that which we are searching for
We believe that we will know
what it is when we come across
it but will we ever really know?
We think we will We say we
will but there is uncertainty in
these thoughts We are afraid of
missing out on some piece of
ourselves that we have yet to
encounter Some piece that could
be the key to understanding all
the other parts of ourselves

From Time to Time

Run from Time
from time to time
but you cannot
escape it's grasp

there is time
there is time
to change
this place

there is time
there is time
to change
ourselves

Awake

I dreamt that I woke up. I got out of bed and put on
my shoes and walked out the door in my pajamas.
I walked down the street and into the city and then
I walked until I was no longer in the city. Vast fields
greeted me and I continued to walk as these silent
lands bathed sun and silence. Days and nights became
a quickening cycle until I stopped trying to keep track
of how much time had gone by. As I walked I listened
to my breathing. I would close my eyes as I inhaled
and open as I exhaled. I began to feel words emerge
from the sun, wind, and moon. They were simple
but spoke of a primal truth. And so I walked and
walked and walked. One day I looked at my hands
and saw the color of my skin fading. If anything
I began to become translucent. No matter, I kept
walking and breathing and listening. How many
days? How many weeks? How many months? How
many years? How many lifetimes? Did it matter?
My body began to fade slowly though I could still
feel the presence of all my body. I could still grasp
with my hands, I could still feel my feet upon the
ground, I, I simply became as though I were living
wind gliding over and through all the lands. Finally
there came the day that nothing was left of me to
see but I kept walking. And I walked further and
farther, until one day I began to dream and in that
dream...

Morning 1/12/18

Let the leaves fall from the tree
Landing gently on the ground
Growing in multitudes as the days
shorten in the Fall

Here Now
Here Now
Breathe Now
Love Now
Om Shanti

Consecrate yourself to yourself
Consecrate your actions
Consecrate your thoughts
Consecrate what nourishes you

Begin today.
You are here.
You are now.
This is your life.
This is yours to change
or maintain.
This life is yours
to mold into the vision
of what you most desire.
Be passionate.
Be persistent.
Be consistent.
Liberate yourself
from what clouds
your mind and body.
Reach beyond yourself.
Reach into yourself.
Reach into spaces
known and unseen.

This world will cloud your mind
This world will cloud your judgement
Focus on what matters
Focus on now
Your struggle is yours alone
Steel yourself
Reach for the ideal

Do not accept the easy answers from yourself.
Accept the upward path.
Ascend.

Possible Dawn

Oftentimes when I wake before dawn
I will sit down at my desk and write
and write and write. I try to open my
mind as fully as I can. I am the most
critical of myself at these hours. I feel
my weaknesses and shortcomings most
acutely. Why? Because I believe in the
better person I know I am capable of
becoming. Because I know my potential
is there and I have yet to meet my own
expectations. Perhaps it is also easier to
be more open and honest with yourself
when the world is still asleep and you
can feel it breathing and dreaming still.
I want to make this life better, not just
for me, but for those I love, for all of us.
It is always a struggle. Nothing of worth
can be gained easily. It must be fought
for. It must be suffered for. There is no
guarantee of a reward. We must become
masters of ourselves. Easier said than
done. That is so often the case. Yet it is
possible. I still believe in potential and
possibility. The story is not yet done.
The words are being written as we
breathe. I do not know your challenges
as intimately as I know my own. Your
struggles are valid. Suffer through them.
Build yourself through them. Recast
yourself into a position of strength and
greater compassion. Give up the belief
that what you want is impossible. Only
then can it be possible.

Morning 1/11/18

The rhythm repeats itself every measure.
A steady 16th note pulse
rolling over the pair of closed hi-hats.
Beneathe it a pair of accents
marks the start of every bar
on the warm stand-up bass.

Call the dawn
Bring the Sun
Bring light once more
to this land

I slept until I could no longer sleep
I wept until I could no longer weep

Sleep forever
Open your eyes
at the eternal dawn
Sleep forever
Wake forever

As years go by
As tears go by

Full Dawn

What We Have Found

We have to hold on to the hope that we can find.
And I'm hanging on I'm hanging on to you.
Tell me Please tell me this is fine That I'm fine.

I won't let this life tear it all apart.
And you're hanging on you're hanging on to me.
And I'm hanging on I'm hanging on to you.
We have to hold on to the hope that we can find.

What Honesty Said To Me

I woke up with honesty
After a good night's rest.
We said hello and I
accepted what she said.
There was some struggle
last night but I won myself
over as best I could
to make the better choice.
This day is beginning
and there are small steps
to take once more
because that's all this life
is about. One sunrise
at a time. One sunset
at a time. Wake and
sleep. Choices made
and followed through.

Broken Lovers

She says and she says
He says and he says
And so they say
And so they say
And they ask you to believe
But you know better
Than to trust broken lovers
She and she says
He says and he says
And so they say
And so they say
You stand up
And walk away
And walk away
But you know better
Than to trust broken lovers

Dear One

it's getting late
and I'm listening
to Leonard Cohen
he keeps me company
as the night deepens
and darkens
why do I call on you
only because it was
you who brought
his voice to me
somewhere in
this darkness
you are there
and I wonder
if he's keeping
you company
as well

A Distant Fire Burning

Everything aflame
Fire turning us to ash
So you dreamt
So you told me
It's raining today
and there's no place
for us to go
Stay here
Stay here
So we do
I sit next to you
Staring at the sky
through glass
Everything concealed
Everything revealed
Your hands reach
for me Gooseflesh
on my arms
Touch me again
Drive the cold away
Somewhere
a fire is burning
Somewhere
someone dances
beneathe falling ash

Listen

"Let your strength come from within"
is what my inner voice said.
This is the voice that knows me best.
This is the voice that knows
my inner heart and true fears.
This is the voice that understands
my weakness and struggles.
I must listen.
I will struggle.
To become master
of my own self.
I am fearful to fail.
I have failed.
What is there to fear?

Monarchs

Only here
Only now
Do not forget
It is too easy
to do so
We are here
We are now
This is fleeting
This is life
These moments
like monarchs
in migration
Watch their
wings and
wonder
when
it will
all come
to pass
again

Sun God

We still worship the Sun
after so many untold centuries
because it is the god we can see
because it is the god we can feel
Rays of light nourishing life
Rays of light warming our skin
When sunlight breaks through
grey skies we rejoice at this
simple act of strength

Another Reminder

Forgive yourself if you can
Change yourself slowly
because you must
A better life is out there
only if you create it
You who sit and wonder
if you can actually do this
know that you can
We are creatures of habit
and comfort but
we can still change

Grey Season

Morning begins
with a grizzled grey sky
bleeding rain onto the ground

This winter settles in
as we ready for this time

You look out your window
Wind shakes skeletal branches
Birds are nowhere to be seen

We do not migrate
Here we must remain

Morning 1/8/18

I heard a voice
And it spoke clearly
What language
What words
did not matter
I understood
All the same

I watch the wind blow across the grass
in the valley below.
It has been so long
since we have known this peace.
Yet we are here at last.
This moment is eternal.

Morning 1/7/18

How long will you stay standing at the shore
as the rising tide comes in
Will you stay long enough to be washed away

To heal myself from within
I must listen to what I need
To be still
To be silent
To purge myself
of poison
Clear the mind
Clear the spirit

To reincarnate
A self
to another self
Or the same self
in a different vehicle
Or perhaps
one self to another
learning
living
once more
past lives
nothing more
than a faint voice
calling in the breeze

We are living in a time where much healing
is needed for so many of us
The invisible weight that is carried
burdens the back and weighs down the soul
Some relief
True relief
Is needed

Is it pleasure if it has grown boring?

After the End

At the end
everything that ever was
ceased to be
It had been a long time coming
There was no one to notice
No one to mourn
The sky finally turned black
A darkness so complete
and pure that has never
been witnessed
All the stars had died
and what planets remained
were being consumed
by the black hole
at the center of the universe
Finally after the last morsel
of matter fell into the void
a final silence overwhelmed
It was as though nothing
had ever existed
As though nothing
would ever exist again
And after an interminable
amount of time
something stirred
This stirring
vibrated and pushed
the condensed matter
Quickly
it was though
energy was filling
all the spaces it had once
called home
And everything
began again

Morning 1/5/18

When all the years have fallen away
What are we left with of this life
that we'll be holding onto

Memory
a steady stream
ebbing
flowing
through this life

I close my eyes
and remember
and remember
everything
and remember
everything

Morning 1/4/18

There is silence within all of us
trying to get out
It is too easy to forget
the value of this gift

Everything that needs to be said has been said
Everything that needs to be done hasn't
Everyone is wondering but who is doing
So many answers drifting in air
but not of them for the question you seek

Evening 1/3/18

Sometimes the days are too much for me
And I don't know what to do with myself

The sentence doesn't need me once it is alive.
Where it goes, what it does is no longer my concern.

How deep must we dig to find the heart of the earth?

I am not speaking in my voice
Rather I seek
To speak
And leave the voice
I've grown into behind

Everything will be left behind
Everything will be forgotten
Everyone remembered will be lost

The line must break
The line must be broken

Piece together my head
From fragments of words
Create the image
Imagine the whole

Starlight On New Year's Eve

What future end do you envision for yourself?

It is hard to know future reality from imagined ends.

How hard this life wears on us as the journey deepens.

They said she died alone and homeless

In a parking lot in Santa Ana

After an attempted robbery.

{Younger days on the stage

Her voice on record

And floating through the air}

As the year was readying to turn

She passed from this place

That failed her. 

Ancient light of dying stars 

Reaching her eyes.

Warm breath on a cold night

And eventually 

Ever her breath 

Turned Cold. 

Of Body

Don't be afraid
Of truth
Of words
Of describing
Grimy reality
The body
Our functions
Not for shock
Truth and only that
To illuminate
The edges
Of what is known
To illuminate
The beating
Of the heart

Sai Anantam

Past the city
Into the winding curves
of the mountain
I find myself
in a place of stillness
I have journeyed here
to see within myself
I am alone
The trees whisper
in hushed tones
The pond water
is still
White temple
solitary in it's stance
I approach
with uncertainty
I must
With bare feet
I enter
and take a place
on the left side
of the room
Gentle quiet
We are all together
breathing
I close my eyes
I begin to see again

Morning 1/3/18

I am running from myself
Even I am growing weary of this
I must look upon the mirror
Face the truth of myself
Stop this fear from holding me
Reclaim myself from me


Time is here
Ever present
Yet it is running
From us

Truth is more than knowing it

Truth is more than accepting it

Truth is acting upon it to change

I am pretending

I need to stop this

Look around

What do you see?

Exhaust yourself of false relief

Return to your truth

Crave

I want your ass
in my mouth
in my hands
I want to feed
on your flesh
I want to hear
your voice
freed from words
I want your flesh
Call to the Heavens
Ecstatic relief
Relief
Only this

The Ladder

Who broke the ladder to God?
All his children
stranded on the Earth
Crying out
Voices praying
Weeping in darkened rooms
Where is the ladder
to God?
Free me
Free me
From You
From Me
From Him
Free me
Free me
From You
From Me
From Him

Morning 1/2/18

invisible memory
unseen touch
turn to look at me
gazes meet
parting glance
fading light

How long will there be light
to guide us through these days
Don't pretend the path will be easy
The journey stretches before us
Deep are the years behind
Time's journey continues
long after this one

I am listening
My eyes are closed
The rhythm is pounded out
through hands and voices
Calling out to the gods
Calling their names
Summoning their presence
Salvation here
Salvation now

Create what is real

Do what you can
Help yourself
Help others
Listen
Listen
Listen

The Blank Page

The blank page is a promise
only you can fulfill.
It starts here with some words
The words needn't be anything
other than themselves.
There doesn't need to be
a special occasion
or greater purpose
they can just simply be
That is enough
That is all
I am thinking
of what I wish to say
but now I don't hesitate
I let the words speak
through me
as they have always done
Such a need
to do this
A small example
of hope