Sunday, March 31, 2019

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.


Thursday, March 28, 2019

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. 






Wednesday, March 27, 2019

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.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

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.

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

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.






Tuesday, March 12, 2019

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.

Thursday, March 7, 2019

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












Wednesday, March 6, 2019

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.

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

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.

Monday, March 4, 2019

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. 

Sunday, March 3, 2019

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.

Friday, March 1, 2019

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.