Enlightened is not Painless

Buddha said there is a path
We can escape suffering.
That sounded good to me.
Abused, filled with pain
And hating myself,
Embarrassed at my existence,
I knew suffering.
Stopping it sounded alright with me.

So I sat.

Beauty My Soul

The light,
Glitter-edged with darkness
Slices.
Sharp as a knife,
Sharp as a razor.
I flinch away,
Then dutiful,
Turn back
Greeting the pain.
Damn it!
I'm going to grow my soul
Beautiful even if it kills me.

Borracho

Los poetas nunca describe
Cómo es estar borracho.
Es porque estan borracho.
¿Que piensas?

I See You

I see you

Working in your dead end

Barista job. 

What I see, and what you see
Are different.

I see Madonna,

I see Love,

I see Joy.

You see Toil,

You see Pain,

You see Struggle to Survive
 

I love you though we'll never meet.
I see you.

Sometimes

Sometimes women, or I suppose men,
Try too hard, with their simpering effort
To touch, to influence, to be what I need.

I am repulsed, I yearn for simple truth
That is true. How far you've lost yourself.
How can you present such counterfeit?

Love yourself
Learn yourself.
Be yourself.

I'll love you.

Can It?

Louise Penny asked (through Ruth),
If it was too much for a poem
To have 'asshole' and 'shithead'
In the same sentence.

What sort of asshole shithead would say no?
Certainly not me! I'm not Republican.
Let's let language just be.
Let's say the say that makes us free.

Evolved Am I

I beat!!!

Distemper

My song, a song of distemper
Is a song of a broken and unsettled life.

Your song, soothing like a
Mother's love in her hand
Stroking away the tension in her child's brow.

My wings, shriveled and tentative
Await their time to grow
Their song waiting to be sung.
We'll sing it when we are strong.

Delicious Rain

Age four or five
Safe outside
Early morning chill
Wishing for a shirt
Waiting for warmth

The driveway
Already warming in the sun
Blesses my feet
So quickly I lie, belly to warmth
Back to chill air.

The campaigning heat
Dominated encroaching chill

And so I lay
Deliciously embodying
The perfect contrast
Between warmth and cold.

Then!
I think I feel a tiny
Spring drop
Of rain on my back.

I raise my head to
Scan for dustings
Of concrete wetness
But see none.
Mistaken?

I put my head down
Aware – waiting – again, another?

Scanning once more and there
A spreading speck, a blossom
Of darker grey

And there another
And there another
And then releases gently on my back
The benediction of Spring rain.

Ahhhhh!
Belly soaked warmness
Dominates
Increasing coolness behind.

Spots are few
Then merge
Then gone
Wetness all around

And!
Rain chill campaigns
Again against
Belly warmth
And triumphs!

I leap and greet my shadow self
Silhouetted in dry grey
And run
Gasping cold
For the house.