The Farmer

•June 22, 2012 • 4 Comments

One must have a mind of summer

To regard the haze and the rain showers

That cascade from the clouds with rumbling;

 

And have been hot a long time

To behold the flitting of insects on the job,

The tickling and matting of perspiration

 

From the mid-August sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sting of mosquitoes,

In the feel of your own breath lingering.

 

Which is the feeling of all breath

That lingers during all seasons

Arising from the same living place

 

For the observer, who observes in the heat

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and nothing that is.

— April Resnick

(In the style of Wallace Stevens)

(For Alan and my Grandfather)

sun

And Yet…

•June 19, 2012 • 3 Comments

Overreacting and heavy metal

Deeply rooted parts of my personality

That meditation may never solve

 

A deep drumbeat rising to a scream

Shaking specks of stagnation from my soul

Leaving me lighter, liberated, and alive

 

I like it, and that is that…and yet still I sit.

If The Monks Had Small Children…

•June 18, 2012 • Leave a Comment

My daughter seems to find the ways,

To set my meditative fruits ablaze.

Out the window leaps my dignity,

Taking with it equanimity.

 

It takes just one more “mommy please,”

To bring this non-self to her knees.

I have no peace or patience left,

Oh shit!  I could just take a breath.

Departure

•June 17, 2012 • 1 Comment

Running around in circles

A tall thin chaotic woman

Underground at Penn Station

Her body leaning forward

Arms and legs flailing to catch up

Slightly like a toddler

While we wait drink chat listen watch

A dark navy gingham blouse

Probably purchased with care

Spots of sweat expanding to pools

With each roundabout

She continues ignored by vendors

A phrase loud and incomprehensible

Except for “fuck” and “her” and “bitch”

 

I find myself equally curious, scared, and envious of her madness, bravery, and stamina.

 

I am Jaded! What are you? (56)

•June 15, 2012 • Leave a Comment

I am Jaded! What are you?

Are you—jaded, judgmental—too?

Then there are more of us!

Don’t tell! They’d never sit– you know!

 

How boring—to be—equanimity!

How tedious—like a Slog—

To trudge all through—the slop of shit—

Like to the kill—a hog!

 

(In the style of Emily Dickinson)

The Long Hall

•June 14, 2012 • 2 Comments

Every time I find myself at your threshold

An image from a movie climbs out of a neuronal connection made 30 years ago

Your smooth white walls seem to supernaturally stretch out before me

The door at the end of you, with light haloed behind it

Bends and breathes with illusory incentive

Beckoning me to walk, then jog, then run

Through you, down, down, down the middle of you

Reaching out to grab, wrap my sweaty spindled fingers

Around the cool, smooth, metallic, magnetic doorknob

I am convinced that there is really something worth saving at the end of you

That I am the only one capable of doing it

Maternal, Mammalian, Make-Believe movie magic

I stand in the doorway willing to push myself

Through a jellied membrane

Into the unknown

Exhaustion

•June 13, 2012 • 7 Comments

Has set me grudgingly grinding through my morning.

Grinding coffee,

Grinding bodily gears,

Grinding shards of psyche.

Earthy elixir bubbles and steams but provides little hope.  I wish the steam was some final poof of a magic trick, which might set me upright and smiling outside of this tired box.

Instead my body is weighed down by leaded eyelids, shrugged shoulders, and a malfunctioning self propulsion mechanism, a melted circuitry that I have no energy to attempt to repair.

Dogma has shattered my psyche and set this entire day into (non)motion.  See-through systems in which I tried to exist yesterday, lay in pointy pieces around me. I cannot move without certain slicing.

So I will

Sip,

Stop,

Sit.

There is no other role I can play today.

Walking Alone

•June 12, 2012 • Leave a Comment

Too close to home to deploy my umbrella

     Too far from the door to avoid getting wet

The timing’s not right so I find myself pelted

     By droplets of things that I haven’t done yet…

(Un)Birthday Dinner

•June 11, 2012 • 2 Comments

Curtains of a bygone era

Polyester popular

Cream colored and heavy

Yellowed with age and sprinkled with dust

Draped and frame a large window

Rectangular prisms of shiny black oil

Reflecting only tiny pinpricks of candle-light

Window or wall…Do you feel it looming?

China like cleverly painted bones

Barely perceptible against the waves of white table cloth

Carefully woven and pressed

Appearing newer only because of care

Coffee cooling itself

Coating the bottoms of teacups

Shallow and cold

No longer inviting

A lone candle standing tall affixed with cartoon images of thanks

 In its crystal cradle

Flame captured in between dances

Casting prejudiced light on resting spoons, elbows, hands, salt and pepper shaker

Glass of tea

Cries condensation of neglect

Tiny disappearing icebergs gather along the surface

Diluting its purpose

“Heart” to Heart

•June 10, 2012 • 1 Comment

What do most people mean when they reference the human heart?  Usually it is an abstract notion of spirit, or soul, or emotional connection.  But what if we bring the human heart back down to its physical level.  The level of the real.  What if when we talk about the heart, we talk about it as a muscle, as cells, as nerves, and perhaps even the part of the brain that controls its beating.  Without acknowledging the multitude of different physical parts of the heart, we have lost the reality of the actual organ that keeps us alive.

Emotions, self, identity, human connection…these things come from the brain.  So why do we call them “heart?”  Let’s acknowledge where these things originate from.  Speaking of these ideas in terms of their actual physical function and origin does not diminish the value of said functions.  Neither the heart nor the brain, in my mind, are diminished if we talk about what they ACTUALLY do, and control.  Muscle, meat, a human organ.  Why do we constantly feel the need to separate our humanity from our brain, or other organs?  Why must we make “heart” some sort of ghost that operates in the middle of our chest, in place of a  very real organ is doing very real and important work.  Work that is absolutely “connected” to our very real brain.

Let us have the conversation from the standpoint of human, physical reality, and perhaps by doing that we can give this human body the same value that we give our ever illusive soul.  What would it look like if we did that?  Not vanity, but VALUE.

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