Writing Poems.
Alright— first things first can we please celebrate life’s original quirk. What we’re casually calling BIRTH— is actually a spontaneous initiation onboard an eight thousand mile wide spherical spaceship named EARTH! Whether we asked or not we’re all born astronauts riding atop a sacred spaceship trying to take as many great trips around earth's nearest energy supply ship the SUN! Each and every one of us woven from that exploded star stuff. We’ve got stardust in our bellies churning since our birth. We feel it swirling in our hearts as we yearn to serve the earth. We feel it blossom in our mind as we seek to find a why. We feel it pulsing in our hearts from where love may always start. We feel its presence in our breathing present in our being— as an urge to understand and an impulse to make meaning from this mysterious experience pulsing within all of us urging, yearning, calling us to live the gift in all of us to trust the source that’s asking more of us to bring forth the beauty, joy and awe in us and free the genius stored in all of us!
I am amazed by how little I know… Amazed by how little I still have to show… After all of the years of seeking and pleading and needing to know… How— After all of the questions and guessing and stressing and insistence… Could I still be missing the true nature of my existence… How could it be— That the harder I seek the more that I seem to encounter resistance…. How could it be— That the poetic pistons of my soul... Could be firing on all cylinders yet I still do not know… The effects that nature versus nurture have upon my soul… And how life’s consciousness conspires to respond to this… How am I still wondering— If it’s my true nature to nurture the searcher within me… Or if I’ve been nurtured to make sure that nature can’t hurt me… How am I still wondering— Who am I really and why am I here… And why— When I’m hurting do I seem to go searching… For some purpose I’m certain is lurking within me… And why— When I’m yearning for certainty will nothing occur to me… And why— Do I seem to be seeking so permanently… What— Is the nature of this longing… This urge for belonging… And will I always be longing… To free myself from this infinite mystery… This persistent feeling that something is missing from me… That some door is yet unlocked… That some pathway is yet unblocked… That some gift within me is yet unboxed… Like some enlightenment’s fighting to break through my surface… To grace me with purpose and hold me in service… And gift me a meaning that’s solid and certain… To finally quiet the seeking and searching… And longing and hurting… And stressing and guessing… And questions and yearning… I ask myself— How long must I selfishly, helplessly seek to find pieces that seem to be missing from me… Instead of selflessly helping myself to make peace with this mystery? How long before mercifully learning to merge with this mystery… And accepting that nothing has ever been missing from me?
Love is wanting what you already have, tending what has already been, nurturing what may someday be. Love is a verb-- unraveling always into becoming. Love is kind, compassionate, tender, understanding, inclusive, gracious and graceful, expansive, embracing, sheltering, patient, forgiving, regenerative, eternally evolving and energetically pulsing. Love is cosmic-- complete truth, absolute openness, total belonging. Love is a force-- attractive, complementary, tidal. Love ebbs, flows, comes, goes elsewhere, returns. Love is presence, present, here now. Love is...
I think when I am lonely I leave myself behind– traveling elsewhere into a field of despair taking good care to send back harsh remittance to the body-mind I leave behind. I think when I am lonely I need only to invite myself back– back from the brink of an existence happening anywhere but here. I think when I am lonely I have wandered only a moment from home– and may sail back towards myself on the wide wake of a deep inhale should I choose to do so
Every now and again I plug the toaster in and glimpse the bright white spark of electric connection flash across the prongs– a not so subtle reminder that this world of ours runs on a magic held mostly out of view– and every now and again will send us the gift of its presence– sometimes as a spark of connection sometimes as an absurd synchronicity sometimes as a purple flower in winter sometimes as a smiling child in spring sometimes as a poem written in mourning sometimes as a dream dreamt at dawn sometimes as something so ordinary we miss it.
Do NOT let them— fix you to their broken language attach you to their static habit task you with their tragic ask: to live cold and frozen words in this dynamic, verbing world
Write with an understanding that you will be misunderstood speak with a knowing that you will be misheard listen with an acceptance that you will be mistook yet– do so anyhow
“These feelings come and go from me again but they are not the me myself.” - Walt Whitman I am helpless, today— whims of Whitman’s wisdom course through blood and bone and body. i am helpless, today— an unrelenting heaviness of my darkest parts ask i bask in soul and shadow i am helpless, today— crushed asunder a sinking, separating self i am helpless, today— passing through time as portal towards tomorrow where help may lay .
This is a poem celebrating your birth-- your spontaneous landing onboard Spaceship Earth! Although you arrived as an astronaut first-- you’ll have so many chances to change, you may feel ready to burst! Though do keep in mind as you choose who you are-- that you’re spinning and zipping around Earth’s nearest star! If that’s not enough to keep your brain busy-- simply spin in some circles until you get dizzy! Then you’ll remember you’re swirling through space-- all ‘cause you chose to go twirling in place! Sometimes you’ll spin out from under your feet-- here you’ll meet Gravity which will be bittersweet! While you may suffer a bump or a bruise-- these are the moments we call astronaut clues! They help us uncover the way it all works-- Earth’s little puzzles, life’s little quirks! So always be asking how the pieces all fit-- long after the grown ups suggest that you quit! While answers are nice, the questions are key-- they help you uncover who you most want to be! So ask all you can and store up the clues-- you’ll put them to use as you choose what you choose! Though here are some hints as you start on your way-- if you find that they help you may tuck them away. Life is a game and games are for fun-- so if you play with a smile, you’ve already won! Never do alone what can be done together-- sharing with others always feels better! The best way to teach is to lead by example-- so stay true to yourself and that will be ample! Though when the you in yourself starts to get fuzzy or blurry-- trust that it happens and try hard not to worry! Simply revisit what you most love to do-- the perfect reminder of what makes you, YOU! Always be proud of all that you are-- as you go zipping and spinning around Earth’s nearest star!
I beat the sun up again cast aside the comfort of bed flick light into darkness shake off all sleepy hope of return i am up day bears down mourning’s here lost is the comfort of being asleep lost is the easy excuse of darkness lost is the world without shadow i am awake now flooded in dawn’s warm light i am up as day bears down i can’t go back to sleep i won’t go back to sleep
a headline in the New York Times reads “A Temple to Capitalism Opens Itself Up” up to what i wonder aloud surely not the acerbic tongue of a young poet who has yet to notice that capitalism and anachronism can be made to rhyme surely not the hoards of the aging and old forced to reverse mortgage their lives to buy more time they cannot afford surely not the working poor who have yet to get the word out that you cannot dream of a middle class without needing the nightmare held below surely not the bright white light of a disinfecting truth yet then again– i will never know because here within the hallowed halls of capitalism’s sacred temple headlines are free but the narratives are paywalled and i refuse to pay the price.
I am aware that the stories i tell myself are only that (has history been written by anything but?) as for instance the story i’m telling now– the one about the broken down air conditioner slumped amongst the trash bags in my neighbors yard i am aware of the many angles i could take the one about consumer culture run amok or the one about how they just don’t make ‘em like they used to or about the hole in the ozone split open by coolants bursting from the coils of an a/c unit spoiling in the sun i could tell all these stories and more or i could tell the one about what really happened the one where the coroner arrives in the driveway of my neighbor’s yard and blocks the spot where the black mass of trash bags now heep the one where they wheel his still, warm body past the bird feeders he fills the rose buds he tends the garden he weeds the walkways he shovels the screen door he patches to keep the bugs out so he may finally read his paper in peace past the television he curses the plants he waters the La-Z-Boy he loves and the table he built with bare hands in a workshop full of tools i’m certain he was going to use to fix that broken air conditioner now slumped at the center of his still warm story.