Sisyphus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Sisyphus, my Sisyphus
You shall never give up
Insane and
Rendered impotent
Frustrated
A clenched jaw
Seeing the pinnacle
Hope! Dashed –
Only to tumble again
~
How great the heart aches
To break free from chains
Plea to thee Thanatos
“Give me life again”
Fresh waters to drink
Far away from the stench of the Styx
i’ve gotta write some crap
some crap i’ve gotta write
about my life, about love
make pretend i am some guru
or some french resistance pen held loose
smoking filtered cigarettes and looking through your soul
~
truth is i’m a plain old fellow
never made too many pennies by putting on airs
but i suppose that’s got to be okay
~
but when
yes, when
did i turn into a statician
and feel pain at dwindling counts
and when did the pennies start to matter
i guess i just wanted to write something
bigger than myself
tis a broken heart i harbor day in / day out
memoirs and lost postcards fading balms
it wasn’t fun, twas always a noble search
all my notches were seeking love
~
for most i was not lovable
just a skilled performer for their plays
what i looked for and saw in them, i remember
but to them i was just a ne’er loved goldfish
~
i do claim a hunger so gnawing, yes
one that can’t or won’t die — not yet
i shall always be a seeker
dodging the scorpions of a desert world
cringing from alcohol doused onto wounds
~
how many times did i fall under a spell?
how many times was my heart broken!
does anyone even remember me?
sigh, they had no inclination of prolonged heart
~
i’m jaded knowing all too well
the impermanence behind thin words of most
the motivations of pressing flesh that does not love back
but one cannot stop searching
even if i end up being the notch
our lives have been
lightning rods
reaching like skinny wrists
up into ominous greying skies
~
our hearts have been
granny’s plump pin cushion
that feel the needles prick–
starting to lose our stuffing
like all voodoo dolls do
~
our minds have held
too many words–
too many pictures–
dark grey matters?
eroticized by trauma’s perverse
~
our souls have been
dragged to hell
flung up to heaven
through many births
and rebirths
~
we are so old
we are so battered
we are so worn
we are crusty and stale
more so, some-days;
and we don’t even know–
yet,
our spirits remains unscathed
~
dear Franciscan night
bathed in salt water cloud sweet
neon lit poems
Jumper on the bridge inhales
penny tipped for bad haircut
~
Somedays
It is all you can give –
To
Bite
Thy
Tongue
~
Against an unsavoury mocking
Of a “tragic” international episode
When in thine own heart
You’ve had your legs blown off
Thousands of times
From the mines
~
In a field of fog
I did traverse the muddy mounds
And all I was concerned with
Was reaching the other side
With my compassion intact
Dare I say I longed to
But today it doth fail
~
To give love to motherless orphans–
To those, in secret, infected with AIDS–
To the dead Jews in Munich–
To the army vet with Gulf War Syndrome–
~
To offer your last warm blanket
To the man dying on the street
Who survived Christmas, but won’t make the new year
~
To the melting flesh radiated nude
Whose Hiroshima is no more
Whose Imagine vigil
Was shot dead outside his home
~
Somedays
It is
Best
To bite
One’s tongue
To schedule a condolence
Does not seem to fit
With the depth of consolation
I wish to give
~
I know it’s not my place
It never ever was
To be the warmest shoulder:
Belongs to others
Others–
Whom I do not trust
With the task
~
A special card of empathic play
There be not words to trump
No prayer that reaches high enough
Just sentiments on placards
Reciting ‘Footprints’
Avoiding melodies like
‘Amazing Grace’ might win the tricks
~
The whole ream of card stock is rubbish
I can only say ‘I’m here’
And
I have a sense of where you are
And this too is your teacher
So much more than I
And I know where will meet
A poem, a midnight, a rock in a year or two
And you will tell me what you learned
I am with thee all along
~
Fever night is long
Seek God, we’re all so broken
Dreaming, I am not
~
Sopping, wet drip hair
Self-improvement seems in vain
Aches, fall to the floor
~
Peel self from wet shirt
Seek in prayer a mensch to be
Tea at five A M
~
Soap soup bathe my neck
Just how sickly are our souls
Saviour was the dream
Something Meaningful
Cover via Amazon
I try to transmit emotion and meaning through my poems, it’s also important to find meaning in the writing’s of others. In the same way that I read many blogs and either feel an impact or not, I haven’t abandoned books — yet.
I like to keep my poetry gritty and cathartic. Whatever mess is going on in my head, throughout, but mostly at the end of the day, get’s spilled out here; hence the subtitle “Poems at Midnight”.
When I write the darkest, deepest, and most shockingly obscene poetic vignettes before I slumber, I have better dreams at night. Occasionally, I’d like to offer something inspirational. There isn’t a huge demand for inspirational blogs, there are enough. Facebook, too, is littered with photos and captions to a sickeningly optimistic level.
Here is an inspirational excerpt from the book A Path With Heart :
”I was called to visit a man in a San Francisco hospital by his sister. He was in his late thirties and already rich. He had a construction company, a sailboat, a ranch, a town house, the works. One day when driving along in his BMW, he blacked out. Tests showed that he had a brain tumor, a melanoma, a rapid-growing type of cancer. The doctor said, “We want to operate on you, but I must warn you that the tumor is in the speech and comprehension center. If we remove the tumor, you may lose all ability to read, to write, to speak, to understand any language. If we don’t operate, you probably have six more weeks to live. Please consider this. We want to operate in the morning. Let us know by then.
I visited this man that evening. He had become very quiet and reflective. As you can imagine, he was in an extraordinary state of consciousness. Such an awakening will sometimes come from our spiritual practice, but for him it came through these exceptional circumstances. When we spoke, this man did not talk about his ranch or sailboat or his money. Where he was headed, they don’t take the currency of bank-books and BMWs. All that is valuable in times of great change is the currency of our heart—the ability and understandings of the heart that have grown within us.
Twenty years before, in the late 1960s, this man had done a little Zen meditation, had read a bit of Alan Watts, and when he faced this moment, that is what he drew on and what he wanted to talk about: his spiritual life and understanding of birth and death. After a most heartfelt conversation, he stopped to be silent for a time and reflect. The he turned to me and said, “I’ve had enough of talking. Maybe I’ve said too many words. This evening it seems so precious just to have a drink of tap water or to watch the pigeons on the windowsill of the medical center fly off through the air. I’m not finished with this life. Maybe I’ll just live it more silently.” So he asked to have the operation. After fourteen hours of surgery by a fine surgeon, his sister visited him in the recovery room. He looked up at her and said, “Good morning.”
(Kornfield, 1993, p.16-17)
Full Reference:
Kornfield, J. (1993). A path with heart: A guide through the perils and promises of spiritual life. New York, NY: Bantom Books
Blurred:
Dead eyes
Have not seen
Brilliance in years
And so are slowly sealing
~
Ringing:
Used ears for the penny auction
Note the howling winds–
The ghosts that scream out
Fill all the craggy town’s secrets and
Fill the humanists with first doubts
~
It seems that only I
Am ready for the wrath of Om
I’ve seen enough
I’ve heard enough
It’s time to sleep
And take what comes
