Poems


When In Utter Mystery

 

Dreamstuff we appear to be

Mushrooming from starry Mystery

Weaving a self from slices of history

Swallowing certainty infusions

Nostalgic for tomorrows free of illusion

 

When our dreams no longer star us

There is nothing we do not encompass

What needs doing is perhaps done best

When by utter Mystery we are undressed

Drifting deep, deep into the wilds of Being

Until the dreamer of dreamers is seen

 

Eternity’s offspring we appear to be

Playing hide-and-seek with our history

With more than enough desire and time

To show up as every possible design

If appearing as all things is our destiny

Then being awakened by all things

Is how we are set free

 

Bow to this until there’s only bowing

Only what lies beyond all knowing

Inviting us into its open secret

Its untranslatable presence

Its endless art

Its absolute

And absolutely eloquent

Silence


Each Deep Parting

 

Each deep parting cracks our heart

But nothing gets broken

Except the notion that we’re apart

The cracks widen — letting in

And letting out what’s too real to be spoken

Let the space between the cracks expand

Until we’re lovers with love’s primal demand

 

Each deep parting shoulders its own aching

But nothing is actually breaking

Except our nostalgia for an easier way

Our sharp and stormy hurt — shining dark

Ferries us heaving and weaving

Through the flatlands and craziness

Until separation cannot separate us

 

Each deep parting crucifies our attachment

Our ribcage sudden and immense sky

It is not our heart that cracks

But its ossified shield — its bulletproof glass

A guardian from a much younger time

Crumbling to less than dust

As all constructions must

 


I Lay My Flesh Upon

 

I lay my flesh upon this broken bed

Letting pillows of pure space have my head

Letting these multi-horizoned replays

Ripple through this infinite of days

Brushing back the edges of dreaming

Erasing every handhold of meaning

 

I lay my flesh upon this dying earth

Sinking too deep to care about rebirth

Fiery green wildlands too vivid to recall

Hugely breathing — valley, peak and shining all

Forest lungs singing green, so green, soaked in green

Enwrapping me in what cannot be seen

 

I lay my flesh upon this fastflaming contingency

Until I am drawn into lucid transparency

Where one touch — one fingertip signature

Lighter than even this dreamt breeze

Ruptures a million tiny sacs of certainties

Until only love’s true shape remains

 

I stretch my flesh over this perishing place

Until it is but holes — clearings in bare space

Leaving me free enough not to need a choice

Silence undresses me — gives me its voice

Making more than sense out of the abyss


Seeds Grow in The Dark

 

Seeds grow in the dark — so do we

Let’s stop making such a virtue out of the light

Let’s turn toward what’s in the shadows

Let’s breathe it in, breathe it here

Meeting it face to face

Until we realize

That what we are seeing

Is none other than us

In endarkened disguise

 

Seeds grow in the dark — so do we

Let’s not be blinded by light

Let’s unwrap the night

Building a faith too deep to be spoken

A recognition too central to be broken

Until even the darkest of days

Lights our way


Eternity’s Gypsies

 

Stalled at the intersection of now and eternity

Hanging on to rapidly vanishing solidity

Roaming through high definition dreamlands

Uprooted from every stand

Losing too much in the details

Haunted by disappearing trails —

We arrive and depart, stop and start

Doing our time playing our part

Sleeping through most of the scenes.

When we awaken from a dream,

What distance have we crossed?

When we awaken, what is lost?

The deathbed but a cradle

Newborns gumming at the edge

 

If it seems we’ve been here before

It’s because there’s nowhere else to go

We are Eternity’s gypsies

Clinging to ghostly solidity

Drunk on amnesia’s anaesthesia

A lifetime cupped in one frozen moment

Suspended in a droplet of forever

Ambered epiphanies eluding memory

Hinting at a mind-shattering enormity

We arrive and depart, stop and start

Doing our time playing our part

Playing peekaboo with absolute Mystery

Finding ourselves everywhen and everywhere

As we make history and history makes us

And We Are Also The Flesh

 

Life outlives us yet we are life

Don’t simply chew on this as metaphor

It is and it is also something more

Something to really bite into

Until the juices of what matters most

Spectacularly stain whatever we’re wearing

About which I’d surely speak

If my words were not already broken

Sea-gossamer out of breath upon the waiting shore

And if I was not already consumed

By what cannot be said

Eaten alive

Beaten into endless transparency

While I rock in the cradle

Of stories that cannot be told

 

We are Light and we are Darkness

And we are also the flesh

Be it of mud or stars

Born and torn between the two

Yet already the One

Inseparable

From the broken Many

A Deeper Surrender

 

Can’t fight this endless perishing any more

Don’t even want things to be as before

The lines of my face sing of more than my years

My body no longer minding my mind’s fears

 

Can’t right this sinking ship

Don’t even want a longer-floating trip

My hands no longer obediently bail

Avoiding death is the surest way to fail

 

Can’t relight these worn-out candles

Don’t even want to retread my sandals

My heart keeps seeing endless emptiness

While breaking open to hold just this

 

Can’t ignite what’s gone to ashes

Don’t even want to redo my crashes

My dying flesh brightens as it ages

Freedom keeps on singing in its cages

 

Can’t fight this endless dying any more

Don’t even want what I wanted before

My hands reach out far and wide then return

The circle at last able to freely connect and burn

 

It was by this that we were haunted

It was this we secretly wanted

And it is to this that we must bow

Deeply fully and exactly now


So Solid Does This Seem

 

So solid this does seem

So firmly framed and named

Too here to be a dream

Or so it does appear

Until once again unraveled

Losing shape and gaining depth

Eyes behind my eyes opening

Without a thought

Naked and bleeding I crawl

From the stand-alone debris

That just a breath or so ago

Called itself me

 

Let all the words sink

Sink like forgotten dreams

Sink like lead fists

Through oceans of cloud

Sink like post-crisis sighs

Sink like bait

For deep-sea wonders

Sink, sink out of sight

Until what they describe

Rises bright and dripping bare

Looking at itself

Through our undreaming eyes

Seeing what is out of sight

Undisguised


When The Night Pulled Back the Bedcovers

 

When the night pulled back the bedcovers

And I sat knees-up ashaking

Waiting for a sign sublime

My mind looking for the time

My body athrob with an eternal rhyme

The windows did bulge with something unborn

Something I could not name

Something I could not contain

 

When the night pulled back the bedcovers

And my breath was no longer mine

And I knew, knew the supreme design

And darkness stormed my room so blinding bright

And my spine was a stem so green and blazing white

I could not help but give the night my hand

Letting it lead me through every shadowland

 

When the night pulled back the bedcovers

And I arose from the ruins of my dreams

And inside and outside were lovers

And exhale was inhale

And I glimpsed a love that could not fail

A love that was both ocean and sail

I did cry out for having so much and for wanting more

And for having done all this before

 

And still I await the great night shining wild

The great night so vastly ripe with child

An undreaming love inviting me to shed my fear

Inviting me to give the night my hand

Until I cannot help but look through the eyes

Of every face no matter how dark the place

 

Surrounded by fiery womb was I

The doors gone, the walls immensely aquiver

My mind no longer looking for the time

My body athrob with an eternal rhyme

New growth running wild through my room

The windows, the windows a shattering of light

And my whole being did shiver and quake

Until my frame of mind did break

And I was in body what I was in spirit

The great night shining wild

Forever full of child