Posts for June 20, 2022 (page 2)

We all start out at ground zero and some things to consider on our way,
from the unknown, to birth, to consciousness, to death, back to the unknown. (D.S.)

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies,that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.  (Jiddu Krishnamurti)

The future is a concept, it doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as tomorrow. There never will be, because time is always now. That’s one of the things we discover when we  stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now.
(Alan Watts )

Unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life are not signs of mental illness, but of growing intelligence. (Ken Wilber)

Discipline, as understood by a warrior, is creative, open, and produces freedom. It is the ability to face the unknown, transforming the feeling of knowing into reverent astonishment; of considering things that exceed the scope of our habits, and daring to face the only war that is worthwhile: The battle for awareness. (Carlos Castaneda)

No one can give you the strength of character necessary… Only you can find that passion within that burns with an integrity that will not settle for anything less than the Truth.
(Adyashanti)
 
Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. Follow the path that is no path, follow your bliss.(Joseph Campbell )
 
Messenger  ( D.S.)

four flights of stairs
over and over and then some
worn out plus worried
over each little bit

I ask myself if I’m truly moving forward
or some other direction
a horizontal move
isn’t that the term?

when will I arrive
will that day change my outlook
lesson the nerves
offer joy and then some?

Coffee on the porch. 
A new mower!
Mow and trim the front yard.
Lunch with a friend. 
Laundry and dishes.
Shower and fix dad’s dinner. 
Movie night and relaxing. 
Internet problems. 
Off to get a router.
Its Father’s Day,
Take dad out to lunch.
Visitors for dad outside. 
Pick up a flat tire to
take to Walmart. 
Mow and weed the back yard. 
Out in the sun reading.
Deliver gifts to friend.
Read until sleep comes.

Depression a masked claw’s strangling grip
Clutches seep into lung’s ebb and flow riff

Even when sun shines no heat no beat
Rhymes and rhythms no say no one obey

No Super Bowl Party sharing guacamole dip
Yelling gladiator cries sitting hip to hip
The warriors all slam-dunks done
People crammed like sardines screaming “WE WON!  WE WON!”

Oh I’m cool you say I never spray when I scream and swish half court away

No cure   No fix   No vax  
For this alien social dis-ease
We’re on our bloody knees
          Geez Please
It’s not a mind bender
It’s quite simple
SURRENDER . . .

Take a WE
Throw in an US
Make it OURS
Don’t go to BARS

When you wear a mask on your chin
No one wins a selfish sin

And the fragile have died and will die and will die . . .
You think you don’t know them
YOU DO
They are YOU!!!

is your dad still mad at you,
for what you did to his car? you scratched it up
like it was meant to be hit by rocks on the way to get ice cream with your little brother.
my dad was also angry with me
whenever i refused to clean my room.
i remember his face turning purple,
his eyes bulging out like a cartoon character – 
steam might as well have blown out from his ears.

then, after some time had passed,
he would take me on a walk or a drive even when i knew how to govern the wheel,
and teach me the importance of being cleanly,
because to him, it meant that you were a nicer, much more pleasant person.
i suppose all daughters like making their fathers angry,
with their blooming adulthood.

but my dad always hugged me, and you too, after he watched how yours made
you cry into your pillow at night. he held me close
and sometimes told me
that nobody deserved me, or you, and then
he took us both for a drive and said how your eyes reminded him of his own,
and how my laugh reminded him of a tree climber’s grin.

is your dad still mad at you,
for speaking back to him? talking to him like an associate, like he’s not your boss anymore.
my dad was less angry and more shocked
that i had the guts to say whatever i needed, to protect myself from him
or anyone else. he stayed still and gave an expression of reluctance,
for he could not debate against 
the daughter of the wind.

You are not required
to set yourself on fire
to keep someone else warm.

Nor are you required
to dim your brightness
just because someone else
averts their eyes.

Nor are you required
to choke down your words
because someone’s ear heard things
you didn’t say.

I don’t pray, but this – I pray you come to know.
That you find
some measure of peace for your soul. That
dawn on this new horizon sings
something like wholeness. Enough safety, for
this blossoming vulnerability. Satiety, too.
And a soft glowing from your bones;
Aurora-like and warming
when you find yourself cold.

When she came to pick me up
from my cousins’ house,
I didn’t want to leave. 
I was having fun, running
the locomotive in the model train set
my uncle had built,
picking kumquats and chasing
guinea hens in the yard. 
“Mommmmy, please!”   
We had to go, she said.   

I dragged to the car, behind
her clicking heels.  Slammed
my door.  Sliding behind the wheel,
she reached for the ignition.   

“You’re a pig,” I spat.  

Sitting back, she turned
toward me, met my eyes.
Nodded.  

“If I’m a pig, then
Daddy’s a hog,
and he’ll have to root
in a garbage can
for our supper.”

don’t worry over
slithering snakes in my hair
just beware the stare

  A young girl boards a train going somewhere, stringless banjo on her back.

 Pastiche   
       after “Five Landscapes” by Cole Swensen

 egret
              door
                          sheet
                                       all white

and I’m at a loss to choose an-
other shade so indiscriminate
in its application                what
of
          rouge
                        fire coral
                                               beach glass

would one elide as well
          disguise itself as half-
of
                            ?

unapproached  for weeks
my brushes shift
                        bottoms ever so
                                     slightly
                                                   weighting
                        the air               flaked colores nest-
                        le in grooves & malleable ones
                        sigh wanting to roll the light
                        off to one side or other

where in each painting
is that spot of unnamed hue
        mutating into
                                 shadow of sky
                                           lost marble
                                                       feather
                                 ?