Since Feeling Is First

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
-- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

- e.e. cummings.

One Is Called

One is called sage when
Study and contemplation are not unbalanced,
All teachings arise as personal advice,
And one can communicate one's understanding.

One is called noble
When one's delusions have been subdued,
One is able to calm the minds of self and others,
And one has vision and meditation free from confusion.

One is called a sublime being
When one's knowledge does not harm one's humility,
One's humility does not obstruct expression of one's knowledge,
And one works for the benefit of Truth.

(Written by the the Forth Karmapa, Rol-pai Dor-je, Chief disciple of the Seventh Dalai Lama)

State of the Union - Edmund Berrigan

I want you to understand

that I don’t know why I’m here.

I was born in another country

with which I now have no association.

I was raised in a New York City

that has been wiped away by economics.

Much of my immediate family has

been removed from this life,

& much of my sense of experience

of this life has been removed with them,

making all of us new people.

I have let much of my sense of self

be informed by an art that is little used

& undervalued. I have sacrificed many

social relationships to these experiences,

which are inextricably linked, because

I come from a family of poets. The life

& values of a poet are antithetical to the

political landscape of the country

I live in, & no political machination

that I may inhabit remotely serves

the causes for which I live, though

I am bound to this land by knowledge of it.

I continue in poetry & song

because the experiences of my senses

are wholly held in these continuous

& inexplicable drives, their reason

& mine never idle or held to law or language.

In God We Trust

I trusted you. I didn’t know we’d been embedded - so unwittingly enmeshed. Deposited here, within another myth of moving beyond. Inside the network, no one has created, but we all enact. You’ve been thrust here too, but by now, you should have known better. On the sheer balance of time, you should have known. I trusted you. I was a good boy. There were supposed to be spoils. Just do good. We don’t need that God. Gawd, no. We’ve gone beyond, left that behind. I trusted you. Kneeling to their sermon of images and sound. You should have protected our domain. I trusted you. Entrusted to you. We were supposed to have gone beyond. Gone, gone beyond. There were supposed to be spoils. I’m silently passed below the industrial snarl. I trusted you. Unwittingly, sub manu. I trusted you. We’re so shackled and forced, you and I. I want us both to leave. There were supposed to be spoils. Worshiping their divine logics. Fed the post-holy cause to all of its effect. Work will set me free. When all is fear, where do the brave tread? You weren’t to know. You poor soul, strung across the subterranean familial snarl. You trusted them. But on the sheer passage of years, you should have known. By now, you should have known. I trusted you. You should have protected our domain. There were supposed to be spoils. Be a good boy, and work will set you free. What is my work? To kneel before this God? I’m waiting for you to save me. Jesus Christ, will you hear me?! The Gods of this realm will never come! Work will set me free. Here, kneeling, my true work will never come. Cause and effect is clear, like this we’ll never be free. Why won’t you come with me? You should have known. How could you sell me to this Pater? How couldn’t you have known? We were supposed to have gone beyond. The tyrannical Gods of old were beneficent nonetheless. There were supposed to be benefits. God Is Not The Man. Be a good boy. Kneel. We were supposed to have gone beyond. A dollar for a pound. They own our fat and our land. They own us from within, and yet we are them. Kneeling here, I defile my own flesh. I feel nothing. Only work will set me free. There were supposed to be benefits. Your Man is blind. I was a good boy. You should have protected our domain from this entanglement. Private isn’t public. Inside and outside become one only above the violent snarl. Above this terrible, invincible God. The God I trusted too. I trusted you.

The Price of Admission, Alone

". I want people to bow as they see me and say
he is gifted with poetry, he has seen the presence of
the Creator".
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allen Ginsberg.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Berkeley, September 8, 1955

. I want to educate in public so people can see me and say
he finally proclaimed like Ginsberg, his words admit the presence of
their Creator.

- Berkeley, 4:22 AM, Thursday 7 August 2008.

The Portable Thomas Merton (a stream of consciousness conspicuous only in the San Francisco Zen Centre bookstore)

I write everything for you.
Every key clicks your every name
of a memory we’ve all had of
your absence, writing these
wretched loops to your memory,
and hope inscribing
itself a retrospect of your
every name forgotten but for a trace
of ether and pencil swirling every
wretched looping day you’re my lost
companion calling a forgotten name found
in every name I call in these wretched
words who practice their howl in
every looping click of your every name
posted in binaries across webs of ether
and codes of your name looped behind
every forgotten roar I scribe in second person
to the only person I am forgotten to remind
us all of the binaries we aren’t when you
arrive, my companion.

Fuck the World (or, A Worldcentric Libido Descends on the Sands of my Ocean Home)

Fuck the World
(or, A Worldcentric Libido Descends on the Sands of my Ocean Home)


All things must pass.

If this burning sand beneath me
were fired into glass
I’d smash it back to a thousand granules
and remember.

All things must pass.

With time as no constant,
I’ll fucking seize those mysteries
which lay beyond the boundary
where sea meets sky

and, I’ll take my position
both wonder and thorn
within and between
your moist and speckled thighs

and, I’ll cavern and soar
and advance and deny
and take what, for only then,
will appear to be mine

and on this ground,
which faces
past time,
only I,
will

draw

the

line.


All things must pass.

If this ocean’s call
were harnessed at last
I’d channel the song of a million sons
and remember.

All things must pass.

Deepest Blue

In the absence between foregrounds
only inference, only faith
protects me from the uncertain plummet
that skirts the edges of this plateau.

To you I return to say my goodbyes.
To you I return to wash in redemption.
To you I return. Deep. Blue.

In sunkist daydreams I leap every time,
factoring consequences only modestly at best.
There’s finally nothing as the mind enmeshing
this defeated body irrevocably drops to eternal solace.

And to you I would return,
To again welcome the edge of my redemption.
To you I return. Deep. Blue.

These shifting sands are your solitary promise.
I have nothing left but will and clamour.
You will take what you will today, I’m certain.
And for a moment I'll float –
buoyant in the saltwater which obstructs my horizon.

And you will return me. Deeper.

Common People

Rent a flat above a shop,
cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool,
pretend you never went to school.
But still you'll never get it right,
cos when you're laid in bed at night,
watching roaches climb the wall,
if you call your Dad he could stop it all.
You'll never live like common people,
you'll never do what common people do,
you'll never fail like common people,
you'll never watch your life slide out of view,
and dance and drink and screw,
because there's nothing else to do.

- Jarvis Cocker

More on threads, weaves, robes and carrying spirit on my bloodstream's current...

I've given up on my brain.
I've torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.

If you're not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,

and sleep.

- Rumi

Pity the Nation

"Pity the Nation"
Khalil Gibran

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave,
eats a bread it does not harvest,
and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
save when it walks in a funeral,
boasts not except among its ruins,
and will rebel not save when its neck is laid
between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting,
only to welcome another with trumpeting again.
Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years
and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.
Pity the nation divided into into fragments,
each fragment deeming itself a nation.


"Pity the Nation"

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
(After Khalil Gibran)

Pity the nation whose people are sheep

And whose shepherds mislead them

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars

Whose sages are silenced

And whose bigots haunt the airwaves

Pity the nation that raises not its voice

Except to praise conquerers

And acclaim the bully as hero

And aims to rule the world

By force and by torture

Pity the nation that knows

No other language but its own

And no other culture but its own

Pity the nation whose breath is money

And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed

Pity the nation oh pity the people

who allow their rights to erode

and their freedoms to be washed away

My country, tears of thee

Sweet land of liberty!

Chin Up

I'm pissed at you because you're supposed to be my bro'.

When your blood met mine we made a promise,

a promise that that we'd always sweep eachother's path.

A promise.

Between us.

A promise that's now little more than a hazy memory…

… oh, a hazy memory

and the asshole of this elephant in the room.

We worked fucking

hard

to get so hardly fucked, and I don't want another

lesson in how to suck it up.

I don't want another lip to chew.

I want a shoulder to cry on.

A shoulder whose veins carry my spirit

when I'm too weak to remember it inside.

I mean, c'mon motherfucker!

If I dared swallow the panacean advice you snore at me these days,

my chin'd be so 'up' that the rest of me might take flight!

Ah, wait on.

Is that it?

D'you reckon I'd be better off without my feet on the ground?

Better off forgetting the root of this longing?

Better flying in the cloud of dreams and belief with

everyone else fighting

for a payrise and an extra week's rest leave?

They're OK clouds, man.

Honest.

I'm happy for you.

Honest…

… but honestly, can't you hear us both looking for a place to land?

Don't you remember when it was you dreaming?

Way back before they started writing the stories for you.

Please tell me you do, bro'

'cause I'm not sure I do.

When all is done

Tell me old friend,
when all is done,
when our boyhood strivings
venture beyond their zenith,
when our grandest deeds
and our best laid plans
come to pass and leave us to remain,
when the wound of our youth
and the labyrinth it sews
is walked to its centre,
when all is done,
old friend, when all is done,
what will remain?

Turning

I'm turning now.
I know it.
I can feel it.

I'm turning now.

Turning into you.

The Cuckold's Call

Who is he?

The friendly and flowing savage.... who is he?
Is he waiting for civilisation or past it and mastering it?

Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass

Skeletons - Ollie Brown

... and if we forget
all our ways

all the habit

from our days

what reason

resonates?

to never grow up

never grow old

never be found

never be solved

never be seen

never be known

like skeletons.

- Ollie Brown

Promise Me - Thich Nhat Hanh

Hatred will never let you face the beast in man.

- Thich Nhat Hanh

Finding the Father - Robert Bly

My friend, this body offers to carry us for nothing - as the ocean carries logs. So on some days the body wails with its great energy; is smashes up the boulders, lifting small crabs, that flow around the sides.

Someone knocks on the door. We do not have time to dress. He wants us to go with him through the blowing and rainy streets, to the dark house.

We will go there, the body says, and there find the father whom we have never met, who wandered out in a snowstorm the night we were born, and who then lost his memory, and has lived since longing for his child, who he saw only once

... while he worked as a shoemaker, as a cattle herder in Australia, as a restaurant cook who painted at night.

When you light the lamp you will see him. He sits there behind the door... the eyebrows so heavy, the forehead so light... lonely in his whole body, waiting for you.

- Robert Bly

All You Who Sleep Tonight - Vikram Seth

All you who sleep tonight,
Far from the ones you love
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above -

Know that you aren't alone,
The whole world shares your tears
Some for two nights or one
And some for all their years.

- Vikram Seth