COVID Easter 2020



My sanity is bound by hope
That after this entombed stillness
Of prescribed isolation
We will resurrect ourselves
Casting away the layered dressings
Of our self-wrought calamity
And breathe fresh morning air
Thoughtfully renewed
In the garden of Earth

What will this new life be?
What will define the yearning brightness
That penetrates our darkest hour?
What clarion lures us forth
From this uneasy sleep?
What, really, is the point
Of our return?

Is it a soaring stock market?
Feverish consuming of endless stuff?
A disregard for every living thing –
Even our own young?
Perpetual striving and toiling
To create another shiny lie
To summit in the dark?
Another hollow victory
Of affluent self-importance?

No…that is the chiseled rock
– An obsessive labor of futility –
That formed the cold and rigid damp
Of our own negation
That is the old way
Of unresurrected self
Blinded into foolishness
By a fixed and narcissistic gaze

To believe in the power
Of rebirth
Is to let go of childish things
And cleave to larger loves
A love of Others
In service and kindness
A love of Nature’s gifts
In respecting and protecting
A love of Beauty
In creating and enjoying
A love of Justice
In championing and obeying
A love of Sharing
In generosity and humility
And a love of Love itself
In remembering, and honoring, the Sacred

Without such reconsideration
We emerge from our tomb
Confused, rudderless, and distraught
Stumbling numbly
Backwards to Golgatha
Eager for the familiar comfort
Of being nailed up on a cross

Without grasping
This moment of renewal
We return to taunted suffering
Pierced by spears of debt
Where greed casts lots
For our lives and our possessions
Where all thirst is quenched
By vile distractions
And our soul cries out:
“Why have you abandoned me?”

This, now, is our chance
To ascend beyond the pettiness
Of “me” and “mine”
To roll away the stone
Of callous indifference
To shed the suffocating mask
Of fearful ignorance
This, now, is the Easter
Of humanity
The lush and fertile change
That delivers us
From ourselves

[Audio version: https://soundcloud.com/user-701150728/covid-19-easter-2020v2]

DEATH DRIVE - ONE

Within us
both hidden in Shadow
and exposed by Light
as primal as the urge to fuck
destruction haunts our being –
more enthralling
than potent swarms
of tiny deaths
more fundamental than fear
able to discard guilt and doubt
like wisps of ashen doll
along with other childish things –
this is the enigma
we now see face to face:

There is a lie about what evil is.

All being is Light
there is no darkness in it
except the occlusions of ignorance.
Each iteration, expression
manifestation of existence
is love in different form
and only love
from unskilled and muddled brutality
to deluded passions
to perfectly crafted kindness;
So what we believe to be wrong, or bad
or the meanest opposing antagonist
is simply one part of love’s continuum
misunderstanding its own.

Within the mind
negation is no enemy
and emptiness can be full;
within the world
death entwines the genesis of rebirth
and deepest night
invites the sun’s return;
within our hearts
acquiescence opens us
to peace
and letting go
bringing clarity and strength.

But in the realm of spirit
in the Before, where love was born
annihilation has a different heft.
For here, return to nothingness is so complete
that even its conception is bereft:
the will to destroy
regressing to an ever-earlier state
defies the Absolute itself.

A contrast can be made this way….
To behold the face of the Divine
and then be rendered mute
in fiercest sundering of soul
is a soaring acclamation: “YES!”
within silence as a whole;
But Outer Darkness is just that –
it is outside all realms of love
not night with promise
of some future day
but eternal absence of the Light.

This is the truest evil
– the ever-present first
the “NO!” devouring itself
the prime annihilation –
which we confront today.

This is the gnashing maw of death
that deniers of science embrace;
this is the Beast
that evangelicals beckon
with reckless political choice;
this is the extinguishing flame
that industrial commerce
demands consume the Earth;
this is the calamity
that picky liberals
bring upon themselves
when they stay home on election day;
this is what childish, spiteful populism
hateful of progressive change
has voted into being.

And of course this is not new –
just one more cycle
where the center cannot hold –
every age has its genocides
from Holocaust to Holodomor
Armenia to Circassia
Algeria to the Americas;
its ruthless dictators
Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun
Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin
Augusto Pinochet, Queen Mary I
Tamerlane, Pope Innocent III;
its chaotic groupthink
Dancing plagues and the Spanish Inquisition
The Great Fear and Irish Fright
Clown sightings and “Strawberries with Sugar.”
So easily…too easily
we spiral hysterically
into ruin.

Our Death Drive is real
its longing for regression overwhelms
and though hope seems vanquished
and common sense crippled
and lunacy ascendant
(surely even demons
shriek in terror at such folly)
we still reside in love –
we still inhabit that continuum
no matter how foolish we become.

So if you know what evil truly is
and endeavor to resist
with earnest mind and heart
calling on your highest art –
the spirit of a perfect love
that leads to sacred sense –
well then
perhaps all this silliness
can be undone.

Grace



Unconditional condition of being
Felt substance of reality
Destroyed and transformed
In Spirit’s fire:
Phoenix daemon
Ill-fitted with flesh
Lavishing heart that loves, is loved
     in the fierceness of Kali.

Mind distilled by breaking
Breaking in, out, loose, free
A gift so great
It can’t be carried
Only given, constantly given
In glorious rivers
     from the Center of All
Fountains of service, compassion and kindness
Flowing without constraint
Into an aching world.

Suffering
A long dark night
     alone and forsaken
Death in the absence of Light
Then knowledge: wisdom and agape
Blazing beacon of return
Annihilating every fear
And every ignorance
For skillful bodhicitta.

I am no more
Beyond Nothing
There is only YES
Joyful sorrow tips the precious oil
Upon His feet
Released at last
Soul shattering with gratitude
Devotion weeps.

Peace be with you.
It was only ever Peace.

The Shedding Tree



At length I understand
What this vague tickling sensation is
This loosening and lifting
Like forgetful daydreams
Between one room and the next:
It’s one more leaf of me, drifting loose
Wending on a breeze of years
Slowly, inevitably, settling to earth.
What was it once?
What marks the feud of my denuding?
Perhaps it is a memory of France in summer
Or some simple skill – like sketching – that my body now finds strange
Or an extra surge of strength on winded climbs
Maybe a kettle full of turgid words, boiled completely dry
Or some delicate, fluttering, once-cherished yearning….?
Or wait…was it something else
Something more important
Woven deeper and more intimate…?
I don’t know.
I. Don’t. Know.
And in not knowing I lose more
Than all the precious selves I’ve stored
A barren ignorance crawls forth
Like Proustian sleep
While chilling winter
Storms my leafless limbs.
Such stillness
On this privileged ground
Gone cold beneath the heaping foliage of life
I am bereft and overwhelmed
In unkempt gloom
Gray gray gray!
And yet…and yet –
Defiant, my reach of bony branch
Jagged and accusatory
Against indifferent and implacable sky
…another vague, tickling sensation in reply.
Then, sensing what is leaving…has left
Burrowing through vague aromas of decay
I try to remember
Intricate, infinite, fiercely desperate
I try to remember
Those many paths that brought me here
I try to remember
And in my clambering effort
The leaves that grace my feet
Sweet and soft and bronzed by time
Reward me with a childhood game
Oh yes, frolicking amid the scent of fall
Oh yes…
That memory is wholly mine
Before I gift it to oblivion.

Black & White



In school
I always struggled
with multiple choice questions
those black-and-white options
never sufficient
– whether two, five or seven –
because so much seemed in-between
so much life in the shadows
rich earth full of endless microbes
and squirming worms.
But this world pares through pairing
excluding, dismissing, casting out
while darkness seethes
and Light blinds
until – all too soon – we turn away.

What is the sacred movement
of the unseen?
Waves across eons
heating inner spaces
bringing forth life
despite the Night:
I do not believe the Universe
was a snap decision!
So why do we rush in
to pound such lovely,
uniquely-shaped pegs
into ill-fitting holes?

I see the blisters and blood
across my palms
from force of willful effort
and I think: "I am an idiot,"
still struggling with those
multiple choice questions
still stumbling, not knowing
if it is truly dark
or I have trapped my heart
in the cold comfort
of dualistic craving.

Winter Solstice Poems: Unloading and Rebooting

Midnight in Joshua Tree


Preamble

dark black wave rising high overhead
    towering wall of obsidian
bitter with hate, icy cold and slick
    terrible with terror
heavier than the hand of God
hovering in brutal threat
    to slap humanity
         in the face
            hard


1. Waiting

my mother, frail but stubborn
shivers by an unlit fire
in unkempt layers
    of unwashed clothes
soon, she will lose her house
more quickly than her mind
    ravished as it has been
        by strokes
        and diabetes
        and years of fearful, angry voices
more quickly than the money
    she gave to scammers on the phone
    and the con artists
        who kept arriving at her door
she sits, and waits
because she wants to die there
    where she was raised
    where she raised my brother
    where she is surrounded
        by antiques, baubles and art
        memories and feelings
        she has carefully collected
            then lost
she wants to die there
    alone in the cold
    but still able to cling
        to the last of herself
"I miss you," she says when I call
the first time she has ever
    said this
    in the forty years
    we have lived apart
and again, "I miss you"
because she has forgotten
that she said it
    a moment before

she has her TV shows
    westerns, mom likes those
for company
and daily card games
    at the senior center
    where she wins sometimes
and her poetry group
    and her cat
but mom
stays far away
    from the retirement facilities
    full of strangers
where we tried to arrange
    a room for her
"no space on the walls
    for my paintings," she says
far away
from nurses and helpers
we sent to take care of her
whom she hastily chased
    out her kitchen door
far away
from the few friends she has left
    the ones who understand
    that accusations, venom and wrath
        will pass
far away
from the neighbors, who try to help
when mom walks into their house
    uninvited
    during dinner
all of these fiercely pushed back
because, well, my mother is afraid
    and alone
    and they are stealing the things
        she misplaced long ago
because they will not give her
        what she is asking for

"I love you," she says to me
my mother...
    I thought I was immune
    with so much hurt
    for so long
        so much mistrust
can still break my heart
even as she waits
    and accuses
    and scorns
    and worries
sobbing like a child
    before she swats her cat
"I love you too, mom," I say
    "I'll call again soon."
and I hang up the phone
shake my head
    overwhelmed
    by helpless frustration
and cry
    quietly


2. WTF?

Of all the people I care about
All around the country and the world
I try to think of someone still whole
After this astoundingly shitty year.

Almost losing a struggle
    with depression.
Thinking they were losing their mind
    after six months on bad meds
    an idiot MD needlessly prescribed.
A teenage child being arrested and jailed.
Unstable, schizophrenic lovers
    who keep violently assaulting.
Gracefully trying to face
    the end of a long and fruitful life.
Having to sell their house
    to pay off debts a mentally ill business partner
    incurred without disclosing.
Abruptly getting laid off
    from a job they held for a decade.
Giving up a lucrative career
    for a new business opportunity
    only to discover
    the backer's checks don't clear.
Accidently uncovering
    that a parent is having an affair.
Not finding any help or relief
    from persistent and debilitating back problems.
Being victimized by pernicious financial scams.
Someone, once thoughtful and smart
    suddenly embracing Infowars conspiracy propaganda
    and voting for Donald Trump.
Finally, not to be left out
    my own health has been a rollercoaster ride.

There must be some explanation.
Solar flares?
Some chemical, not yet detected
    leaching into our water?
The end of an age?
Alien mind control?
A military experiment gone awry?
Many of these disasters
have been decades in the making.
Some were clearly a consequence
    of poor decisions.
Others seemed arbitrary
    and statistically improbable.
A few cases were clearly a consequence
    of malicious intent
    or someone else's failings.
But the lines of responsibility
    and accountability can be fuzzy.
There is just one constant:
    Pain.
So many shades of pain.

So as Winter Solstice eve approaches
I welcome the returning Sun
Casting my hope after New Life
    the healing warmth of Spring
    and mercies of a loving God
"Just for Today
May Love and Light Arise
In All We Are
and All We Are
Arise In Love and Light."
In this new cycle of the year
may all of us
    be whole again.

But really, 2016
    what the fuck...?


3. Burn It Up

angry, small-minded men
rage against a storm of change
abusing technologies they do not comprehend
repeating ideologies they do not understand
pounding their chests with ape-like conviction
about imagined wrongs
and the righteousness of their delusions
when along comes a carnival barker
with the smooth assurance
of a TV evangelist
to woo and inflame their every fear
lifting them up
on wings of false promise
to the top of a very high mountain

"Behold the splendor of the world
and all its glorious kingdoms!
It is yours! Yours to own and exploit!
Yours to dominate and annihilate!
Yours! Yours! Yours!
If only you will bow down
and worship me!"

and all the angry, small-minded men
roar with delight
chanting: "Kill the beast!
Cut its throat!
Spill its blood!"
and bow down before
that grinning carnival barker
parting their pale white cheeks
to welcome him in
"Yes! Yes! Yes!"
they cry out
inviting their shiny new Master
to have his way with them
and with the Earth
and all the trees and oceans
and every living thing
until a slow, slick dark roils forth
from endless depths
to consume the Light
and vanquish our last vestiges of Eden
until all agony and grief
is silenced by the Night
and every small-minded
angry little man
succumbs by willful choice
to the poison he has eaten.