Yoyo Paradigm

Cyclical existence

over lifetimes...

you have to keep doing it

'til you get it right.

When you succeed, you find

the whole thing is a waste of time.

Just sitting there...so what?

And yet, that's how you find out

that the play's the thing,

the phenomenal play,

in which the truth is revealed.

You're not going to find out anything

running from library to library...you'll find

you "just numbly don't get there".

Getting to the moon means nothing

if you don't know what life is for.

Everything that can be known

has been known already....

many paths to truth have been 

followed to the end.

Find yours.

Dance Of The Benevolent Executioner

dance of the inhabitants of the eternal

bus station high on LSD…

dance of the exquisite corpse …

dance of muscular ephemeral posers…

dance of lost memories…

dance of momentary perfection…

dance of perpetual universal 

clockwork chaos…

dance of razor’s edge awareness

in intimacy of connection…

dance of no sleep working it out

in the middle the night…

dance of existence a bird on a wire…

dance of hearts in anticipation…

dance of phenomenon our consort…

the play the thing in which

the truth is revealed. 

Indigo Papastrami

Turned the corner from the alley

to the busy city street…

put his clothes in the dryer at the 

laundromat, a fat woman in curlers

with a drooping cigarette 

giving him the eye…

shrouded in mist 

entered the cemetery

listening to the rain patter

on his fedora…

packed his suitcase…

left his gun in the hotel nightstand

drawer, on top of the Gideon Bible…

remembered that sunny afternoon

in the glade with the girl and the stuff

and the music and the colors…

his life flashed in front of him

like an old new car commercial.

Top Of The Rollercoaster

Looking down…..way down…

tipping point before free fall…

calm before the storm…

“Oh oh…” before the fight starts…

birth of a child as life begins.

Bardo

Transition state…

neither here nor there…

Gagaku on a hot, dry afternoon…

sacredness of Imperial space…

royal incense cloud of mystery

transcending human foible…

blade of precise now reality…

here or garden in Kyoto same…

blood on chrysanthemum petals…

maple leaves set trees red, ablaze…

tea cup overturned in final gesture.

The greatest switcheroo is this moment

of nowness

the only time

everything changes

just like that.

Current Events #2

slipping between slime covered rocks

same as

slipping from Tepoztlan to Medellin

can’t fight the slip stream why bother

intuition keeps from drowning situational

awareness vipashana burning man mind

it all depends on how you look at it

everything starts in the middle clear slow

motion when you’re cornered or going

over rocks.

Day Tripper #8

Inward bound is outward journey

If you’re high, it ain’t broke,

so, don’t try to fix it.

You can’t create 

if you’re trying to create.

Where do these thoughts come from?

We all wish we knew.

“Sitting around chanting, what crap!

Go out, get laid! That’s wisdom!”  Ikkyu

I can’t make a poem happen…

I just cry out, and get out of the way.

I just write the poem ’til it ends, 

and cut it off, like taffy.

You think I’m crazy….

I think I’d be crazy not to be.

Leaving Home

Leaving home, again,

(how many times this life?)

to be reborn in Medellin.

Buddha said you can’t begin

the spiritual path until you first

“leave home’, meaning, leaving

the nest where neuroses breeds.

Everything new is an adventure,

but, enough of it, and even

adventure becomes familiar…

a good path to overcome fear.

Friends and lovers along the way…

lost many, but, only the weak ones.

I take the good bits with me in my heart…

the rest of it can stay.

Leaving home, leaving imagined territory,

leaving extra baggage, leaving useless 

accoutrements, leaving warn out schemes,

leaving hesitation, leaving hope of survival.

Oh, that magic feeling: nowhere to go!

Oh, that magic feeling: nowhere else to be

except on the path; whether the path moves

or stays in place, still ongoing!

Oh! How fortunate to be able to leave when 

the time is right, to know the time is right, 

to trust the muse of life; intuition…that part 

of us that knows right from wrong; in spite

of rational mind that thinks it knows and

thinks it doesn’t know. 

“Making future plans is like closing your eyes

on the edge of a cliff.” Paltrul Rinpoche

Mistaken Identity (2004)

My parents mistook me for someone 

and gave me a name.

That confused me for a long time.

I never had the heart to tell them

I wasn’t who they thought I was.

At least, I was smart enough

not to pretend I was that person...

not that I ever found out

who I was.

Poan #8

The only thing that differentiates
us from each other
is our obscurations.

Poan (by Thomas Liphard)

You did something;
you paused.
That's great.

That Was The Best Birthday....EVER!

That was the best birthday of my 

entire life. Not only did I make 

arrangements with my landlord 

that were perfect.

Not only did I see my buddhist 

friend/teacher with two spontaneous 

other new/good old  friends.

Not only did we have a great time.

Not only did I take them to my house 

to show them, and they loved it and 

jumped for joy, and started making 

plans.

But, also, as they were leaving, I took 

them to my tienda to introduce them 

to my friend, the local head man.  And 

Roger and he had the same first name. 

And his niece, who lived next door was 

drunk in the street for fiesta. And she

kept hugging me and asking if I drank…

(that never happened before) 

…while two 

men, (friends? I guess) looked on 

at her antics smiling. And when we were 

all through having fun and started parting 

ways, the two men smiled and gave me 

the thumbs up. 

The Death Of Martin Fritter

He wasn’t a confection,

nor was he a waste of time.

I remember he had a dialogue

with Rinpoche, in front of us all.

He was very uncomfortable,

on the spot,

nowhere to hide,

naked and exposed,

an example for us all.

Misogyny

This is not about any particular person, 

but, I know a lot of older men, even older 

than  me, that still get in trouble because 

they trip over their own dicks. And maybe 

it's because of all that fucking I did in 

(             /             ) that I worked out a lot 

of it and am not seduced by it. When 

you're 20, 30, even 40, ok. sure.....but....

how long  are you gonna beat a 

dead horse?

Now, and especially because of the Mexican 

women, I think all women should come with 

warning labels of possible side effects:

"May Cause: severe emotional trauma; loss 

of wealth; inability to tell right from wrong; 

suicidal/homicidal thoughts; and, (of course), 

anal leakage."

To paraphrase Charles Bukowski: I don’t 

hate women; I just feel better when they’re 

not around.