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