Posts for June 22, 2026 (page 9)

As part of the human experience
we are expected to navigate
          a nonnegotiable duality –
          alongside joy there is always loss
and yet when these two domains collapse upon one another
the void in that space feels otherworldly.
Keeping the flame of serenity flickering
in a deluge of despair
seems like a god-like feat
beyond the reaches of my finite human capacity.
Being in the room, sharing air,
in the moment that his life’s breath was extinguished
          has diminished my own
my adjacent mourning
          an acceptable penance
as I continue on, joy intact.

6/22/26
Rest easy, Paul 💜

No more rain, just something black
up there keeps spinning its yarn.

The lamb we slaughtered yesterday
moves across the sky.

It pressed its little hornless head
into our hands, waiting to be petted.

Its meek nature of a male lamb
served us very well.

Moved by some ancient bloodthirst,
we then ate and drank.

And that bitter blood won’t soak into the earth—
it just will not soak in.

Mud runs along the road, and in the cellars,
frogs and carp are breeding.

From the taps, as if from a deep wound,
red mud keeps dripping.

They who have lost their land, a house, a dear friend
look down, let out a mournful cry.

They who have lost it all to water
stare at the sky.

The waves of mind
demand so much of Silence.
But She does not talk back
does not give answers nor arguments.
She is the hidden author of every thought
every fleeling
every moment.

Silence.

She speaks only one word.
And that word is this very existence.
No name you give Her
touches Her
captures Her.
No understanding
can embrace Her.

Mind throws itself at Silence
demanding to be let into
Her radiant darkness
Her pure and smiling
nothingness.

The mind hurls itself
into sacred questions.
But Silence remains
unmoved by the tantrums.
She asks only for nothing.

Nothing.

But you won’t give it to Her
because it is the last coin
in your pocket.
And you would rather
give her demands than
your sacred and empty hands.

ADYASHANTI [from my secert is SILENCE]

We specialize in 
twisting the knife,
insults placed just so
between the ribs.

We’re practitioners of
the gut punch, load
the glove with enough weight
to drive the breath from us.

We stick and move, bob
so we can weave words
into a combo the other
can’t get back up from.

We want to end this fight
on our terms, we fight
each other because there’s
no one else left.

It’s not that I don’t forgive,
I will never forget.
Moving on from your life
is something I will never regret.

in my basement room

The garden asks me to breathe
to grieve & face everything I can
bury behind a screen
No wonder we built cities
How sad to miss out on all of this.

I’ve written of black raspberries again. 
It seems 
each bite’s a step toward childhood, 
their seedy sweetness colors tongue, time’s lens. 
Well worth the risk of poison ivy’s itch, 
I reach on tiptoe—one hides beneath a leaf. 
I reach on tiptoe—one hides beneath a leaf, 
well worth the risk of poison ivy’s itch. 
Their seedy sweetness colors tongue, time’s lens, 
each bite’s a step toward childhood. 
It seems 
I’ve written of black raspberries again. 

Strange…

…how coffee gets hot enough
to scar a soul…

…how paint on bricks peels and chips
revealing truth…

…how kites flying in the wind
never leave you… 

…how rain pours for many days
cleansing nothing…

…how songs can cut like scalpals
healing little…

…how schools stay open all day
teaching no one…

…how billionarires make money
but don’t get rich…

 …how men and women have sex
and stay strangers…

…how soldiers kill and are killed
but wars don’t stop… 

… how poems sans periods
find ways to end 

        mix with dust motes,
                            bask in the afternoon 
            light which pours
through an open 
                  barn window, float 
                                   on the coattails
              of a summer 
                         breeze way high up
        to the rafters,
                     drift back down
                              as slow as a feather,
                                         inhale the warm,
                    sweet leathered
           scent of hay-
                                fed horse 
        breath, then
                        come to rest 
                                          upon
                                    a dappled shoulder.