Victim Of Amnesia

When I was born I had forgotten who

I had been. My father looked at me and said:

“Where have you been?” I couldn’t answer him.

I was back at tabula rasa, square one, beginner’s 

mind. From then, I made it up anew, as I went along.

T.V. was new. I was watching a show, The Big

Picture. I thought: “Oh boy! I’m going to find out

what life is all about!” I didn’t, it was a military show.

So I went on in the clear fog of not knowing, 

discovering that nobody else knew either, although

they tried to tell me they did. I never believed any

of them. I could tell by their words they were stuck

in a rut, parents, teachers, the whole lot of them.

They were all full of shit. I read a lot of books,

thinking that someone must know something,

figured it out a bit. There were clues in poems I

memorized, a few words at a time. I thought if

I had enough clues, things would begin to make 

sense, it did. I realized very few had any idea what 

they were doing, or why. I became friendly but 

distant, wondering if I would ever meet someone

that had it together. I did, Trungpa, my teacher. He

was so together he had a body with no bullshit inside.

It was rather intimidating because, by that time, I had

accumulated plenty of bullshit myself. I didn’t mean to,

but there it was. He taught me to shed it, dissolve it,

vomit it. I went through a lot, but now I’m fine.

What else shall we talk about? The weather, the

mountains, the sweet dogs I pet as I go to the

market? I don’t want to bore you with details,

but that’s all I’ve got. There’s nothing more to explain.

I self evolved, like anyone could, but few do; too

ravenous for feces, as Shantideva put it, to even

look around. I write because I breathe, it’s part of

it all. I send poems into the quantum matrix, the Void,

like other poets did, aspiring that some will catch some

of the clues that I send, the continuity of awakened mind,

so they can find their own paths, their own awakenings

from the sleep of their lives, and finally remember

what they are.