To Be a Woman

What’s it like to be a woman?
To know the joys of Motherhood
To serve as if it was your duty
A man, a family, a community

Not getting paid for it
What’s it like to feel a woman?
To feel a vacancy between the legs
Under the skirt, a summer breeze

And eyes on me, like the feast of gulls?
What’s it like to be a woman?
To have closer social bonds
To never truly be alone, how

Does that feel? To have protective
Fathers, and possessive boyfriends?
What’s it like to be a woman?
I will never know, to feel the dresses

Caress you, as you blithely change
From mauve, to peach, to blue.
How does it feel to have skin
Like olive oil, and wear perfume

What’s it like to seduce a man
With just a pouty look, what’s it like
To have to earn your place twice
As hard, in the boardroom?

What’s it like to be a woman?
To be stoned to death for being human.

One Last Chance

I’ve buried with open eyes
My heart in the world
To see nothing really
And to see love clearly

I’ve deserted language
For feeling, it’s the only
Truth that matters to me
The foliage of clear identity

The fallen reality of empathy
I’ve buried with open eyes
My heart in the world
So that my soul might

Not go extinct, it’s light weight
Pressed against the winter morning
Like an anonymous conspiracy
Of seeing beauty even in decay

And the pulse of syllables
Laughing even in monotony
I’ve burned with open eyes
My heart in the world

So that i might sleepwalk kindly
For the rest of my brief years
If only to love a bit more
And learn to think of myself

A bit less, so far as I know
It’s working, goodbye then
Charred language, scattered vows
Promises of desires better left

For the precipitation of music
The arpeggio of sighs.

Dead Poets’ Legacy

I’ve been stalked by God and Suns
Haunted by wild furies and ghosts
Loved by nature’s shyest beasts
Adored by words slick in subjectivity

I’ve drunk the magic of life
In all her deep-velvet verities
And the fabulous beauty of even
Despair, and the psychic knot of tragedy

I’ve been visited by calamity
Survived through bankrupt bed-ridden
Poverty, seen the ceremony of
Heart-break unfold in slow scrutiny

I’ve loved those conversations
Among the ruins, as if that was also
Part of my destiny, but as a Buddhist
I’ve taken it all in stride, and in a whirlwind

Of havoc and the empathy that comes
After significant suffering, I can only say
I carry with me the legacy of poets
I’ve read carefully those who committed suicide

I’ve felt their prominent warped humanity
And learned from their last grip on romance
I’ve been stalked by Metaphysics and Death
A tentative existentialism sweet as

Writing poems on napkins, when nothing else
Is available, I gave heavenward and married
Art it seemed, when all friends and lovers left me
Poetry is what I fed upon, to survive

How shall I tell you the story then?
Of how my retrograde stars nudged me?
Or how the mild light enfolds as I stooped
A lonely guest in this anonymous world?

After Journaling

There is no burnt paper anymore
My age of confessions is over
I have nothing to hide from myself
My journals are just filled

With spiritual musings
The drama has gone
And angst is dead
No saxophone haunting

From my bedroom
No squalor beneath my
Guitar-fingers, only
The meditation of poems

The slapping phantom of laundry
An old apartment, beaten up
While my screen paints silversmithing
Of this unusual alchemy

The beating of blackberry wisdom
Into ripe aphorisms, it’s enough
For procrastination and myth
We all have to cross those waters

One day, astounded souls
Leaving games of chess and flirting behind
And filter flowers for golden messages
And live in a quiet place in Canada

Where the stars are not so cold
And all dark advice of shame is gone
Open to the wilderness, ready
To learn how to be free.

Hibiscus Serenity

i

I have no worry, I have no words
No smiles, only equanimity
The peace that comes from

So much feeling, in too little time
Look right, look up, look inside
A lift mine heart, but all that is left
Is pure empathy, for lives
Not my own, I have been saved

ii

By falling leaves, and turning time
And friends along the way
That the sacred grounds

Have been growing gardens
In my spirit’s recess and ambiguity
A stasis of light, and a warmth
Of another color a bit like pink
I have no worries, I have no words

iii

No preferences, only detachment
And the calm of hope, after poverty
Foam to wheat, dread to placid mirth

I have melted like the dew on the grass
And all that’s left is the cauldron
Of morning, beautiful fairy-tale morning
And alphabets floating in my mind.

Art Courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/agnescecile

After a Thousand Poets

To dream myself, to be dreampt
By other eyes, on other worlds
That was the prophecy of
The written word, to be fluid

Like a medium, to pastel the words
Into new forms, to climb
The towers together of meaning
And visit the citadels of angels

To explore rooms, walk streets
Of singing combinations never
Before experienced, like surrealism
In a bright sunlit room, and art

With trends and sublime gulfs
Where only a few artists can reach
And cities of culture’s inheritance
Where philosophers must tread

To dream myself, being more
Than just idle dreams, to weave
Looking out into new enchanted sentences
That come alive in their own way

That can speak to sense and soul
Moulding kaleidoscopic clouds
As easy as the fountains of day
And water of enormous glimpses

Of prosperity, the light of the future
Golden mornings, youth transformed
Some transparent shimmer
Of alphabets that can suffice the
Difficult diamond thirst.

Cyberflowing

I am a translucent verb
In love with nouns
Escaping out of events

Frustrated by the mirth of time
I am not an object, only a person
By breeding and heritage
In ideas I am water
So my writing

Becomes a part of the Tao
Like ink in water
I write cursive and mandarin glyphs

Sailing into the eyes
Of rainbows and storms
I live in literature like
The secret power of a sage
Waiting to be reborn

My temptations are
Celebrating the end
The ends are always

Silent and unbending
As if the source of my strength
Is proliferation of invisible symbols

Guilty of being stuck in semantics
In love with nouns and suffixes
The vocabulary of my spirit
Is technocratic and simulative.

After a lifetime of waiting

When the water we drank
In the nights, was
All the wine in the world

Together, we wanted it that way
In our entrance of the prime
Of our lives, the wedding ring
Ripe fruit, sleeplessness of teamwork
Good and fortune, round time

Forever like love melted
In the courtesy of lost years
Just as it was, just as it always

Should have been, when the love
Was given, it was to each other
Like a love poem composed
In a far off foreign country
Incorporating elements of that culture

We lie in the grass life isn’t forever
Is love a serious matter?
I still cannot say, like the

Dream of years of good living
It came so fast, after
What seemed like
A lifetime of waiting.

Sea People

Our love was not other than this
It did not, not break on the shores
Like the waves of oceans
Across from which we came

You were native and I was immigrant
Or was I foreigner and you were
Oriental? A lowered eyelid of heart
Far in the distance, coming closer

Like a strange shell of our souls
Meeting, side by side, we tried
To explain it, but it was what it was
That higher instinct to flight

Love is a flight from reality
If we’d close our eyes
We might have missed it
The breath that mingles with years

And the solace that comes
From deep loyalty and ultimate
Belonging, it’s the shore alight
After a thousand empty voyages

Our love was not other than this
The body of a flower born to bloom
On a lonely branch, requiring timing
Nature did that to us, she let us go

Against the musical rhythm
Of our fate where we met
Changing our lives forever.

I am the circumstance

My hands? They are
On the lips of the wind
My eyes? They are
With the gorgeous sun
That knows no sets or rise

Only the love shared
From the perspective of a centre
My heart? It’s born every day
New, like silver clouds
Dispersing over here or there

What am I? I am not this
Not that, not actually a self
I am the minds of all free beings
My lungs? They inhale morning
And nightfall, with the weight

Of birds and flight and credible
Dreaming, in this architecture
Of sound, what is life?
It’s the music that invented movement
Between footsteps of evolution

My love? It’s the seasons that
Never dies, only renews
What more could I say?

Art Courtesy: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Rainbow-visionary-327741060

Visionary Moment

We were enclosed by
Synchronicity, an hour
Of tremendous divinity

And I forgot myself there
As if forever, as if I never existed
And it was luminous

I existed there without self
We were as if an entire plant
The universe was an organism

And light left us blessedness
In all directions, like fish
In a nourishing sea

And my petals were parts of you
And your scent was a part of me
And I was wholly consumed

In grace, with cheeks of the sun
Pale as a transparent bud
My heart was divine light

Where I did not seek to understand
But lost myself in beloved infinite identity
And to you, I had only tenderness.

Art Courtesy: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Visionary-art-339818579

Paradox of Thought

I aspire to silence the voices
That I may speak for all voices
The function of a room is
To keep the body well

The function of a mind is
To keep the soul serene
I will never hear the one true voice
But in the Tao I find ultimate empathy

And I give it to all creatures here
And in silence I feel the snowflakes
The clouds, the trees, the light
In a whole new way against

The night, alive in the day
I become like the breeze
That rustles the leaves
And by disappearing to myself

I have room to identify with everything
That is the function of silence
My friend, we’ve thought of how
The poet spoke the thoughts

Of history, well as a finger points
To the stars, the mind dreams
In silence, language finds God.

Nature 520:1

For I know the plans I have for you
Said Nature, to the beast
On whatever star, of artificial or organic
Intelligence, your design is place

Where energies collide
Plans to prosper and plans not
To harm you, and your descendants
Will be good and just

Plans to give you hope and a future
Taste and see that Nature is good
Blessed are those who follow her laws
And those who hope in the stars

Will renew their strength and soar
Like miracles from their Earths
They will walk on strange worlds
And not faint, for they will be

Custodians of life, protecting, nurturing
As was their true purpose, as they
Once were by me, Said Nature
As the home star burst forth, a red nothing.

The Group

There is strength in vulnerability
To feel more, is to be rich
It’s an abundance of the inner world
Who cares for possessions?

I wasn’t born to be a profiteer
I’d rather be like the water
Touching here, touching there
Pliant to the relationship of relationships

Aware of how the unity shapes
The whole, of how the particulars
Transfer their energy, it’s morbid
To think of ourselves as isolated selves

It’s dehumanizing to go to war every day
In the marketplace, to the office
There’s a function in serving a group
To feel more, connected and belong

To an entity that is clasped on many sides
By the shared vulnerability of each one.

We Write

To write is not to presume creativity
To write is not to add something
But to take away, to cleanse
To dispense with the enormous

Personalization which is an error
Of an unnetworked brain
Men commit monstrous acts
In the hopes of becoming great

But to write is the most human act
Since language is our Tao and birthright
To live in harmony as an author
Means to write from the perfect

Symmetry of your soul, since
That is instinctive, move with its
Effortless flow, understanding is not

Righteous, it’s a perspective of dominance
Humility requires to let go of intellectual ego
And to empathize on a more fundamental level.

White Noise

White Noise

I was nothing before
I became someone
Was light, came from water
Went into the air
Or felt the Earth beneath
My toes and loved
The Universe before I knew
How old it was, grandmother cosmos
Do not dismiss the white noise
It is the quantum of everywhere
And I too am part of that
Until I decay and by whim
Become part of nature indistinct
Though intelligence is everywhere
And so I will listen in the silence
For the sound of the universe
Hear the voices of beings
Feel the experience of others
As if it was my own, that is
My gift, the identity of understanding
The empathy of centuries
The love of history reincarnated.

Mantra of the Nomad who died somewhere in Asia

Mantra of the Nomad who died somewhere in Asia

To a heart that is open
Everyone appears as a friend
To a mind that is still
The entire universe surrenders

It’s all in the way you smile
At the start of your day
And laugh at the end of the day
It’s all the peace one feels

When crossing the same river
Any river could have been home
I’ll keep butterflies as my companion
Not like I would want to

Trap any butterfly, they are much
More beautiful doing what they do
The same for flowers and
Forget the years, I’m going to

Leap duality on my way home
Home is where the heart is open
Home is where the mind is still
Home is the universe that waits for me
Home are the friends who live everywhere.

Lush

Lush

I had the courage to
Let go of thoughts
And found myself living in Silence

There highest knowledge
Was unbounded like a gold
Center of the void
Delimited by duality
I could see the unity-sphere

And I had the experience
Of nearness to emptiness
Tao is the source of these

Of unity, silence, emptiness
And I felt a sweet surrender
Letting go of what I wanted
Letting go of what I had planned
For something about the universe

That attracted me to living
In the moment, looking at
A flock of birds, or reading
The poem of the world
In fullness to myself
Reverberating with everything.

Hundreds of years after Zhuangzi

Happiness is the deep peace
That arrives when you
Observe the world with empathy
Wherever you look you feel

Empathy, identity, compassion
That is the bliss when
Your heart shall find peace
It will be at peace, and everything

You have done or been or thought
It will all find perfect acceptance
That’s the source of things
That’s how all beings become tolerant

And furthermore, immersed
In the Great Unity, they find
More joy than they knew
Was possible, in a harmony

That is dignified, benevolent and
Never striving for happiness
Because happiness comes from inside
All the while knowing that

Attachment is a clinging and a distinction
Better to have a boundless home
In the divine container of the universe
That’s the disinterested, amused and loving

Bliss of eyes dreaming in experience
The experience where the space
Between you and I vanishes.

Lessons from Aquarius

The Ego is that
And the pure self is This
Man is not intended to be
A self-centered being

He is not intended to be
Limited by form or by gender
Love is not meant to be a means
To profit descendants over others

Where there is conflict, there is ego
And where there is harmony, there is
Pure self, identity in others
Empathy for nature, for life, for

A bit of everything
Don’t let that unfathomable secret
Be hidden from you, don’t only
Settle for your own profit, it’s not enough

The secret Tao means to let go
And be a part of everything
Not to divide or create boundaries
But let the world in and go into the world

Then your ego will disappear and
Your self, will become the entire world.

Once upon a time you were free

Happiness is the absence
Of attachment, I know
It’s hard to believe
But in that freedom
You can empathize with
The cosmos, and are more
Aware of the unity-of-everything

Flow with whatever may happen
Let your mind be free
Stay centered in experience
A path is made by walking on it
Love is made by serving it
Happiness is turning inwards

In the solitude of awakening
Awakening to spiritual reality
Unposssessed by material things
It’s hard to believe bliss
Could be object-less, but
It’s only pleasure that requires objects.

Post-Modern Freedom

A self-help series poem

Post-Modern Freedom

Don’t be surprised by events
Experience is your teacher
Don’t be attached to what you have
Life has given you

So much already
Time is what may come to pass
Because today you were ready
Give up defining yourself

Live in the freedom of the moment
Don’t let past labels cloud your judgement
But be a clean slate each and every day
Die to yourself that you might

Love the world more, it’s sometimes
Necessary, to become somebody new
Change to adapt to the challenges
Push yourself to surprise yourself

Experience is your loving teacher
Time is your tender mistress
Abundance and simplicity will play
With you, as children you once knew

Do not be surprised if they call you names
Do not be shocked if they depart
You are who you are for a reason
Awaken to that purpose so you can

Clearly celebrate the moment
And finally, be grateful for the
Emergence of new experiences
Your soul likes them before
You perceive they are even happening to you.

Aphorisms trapped in Time

Love in its highest form
Is compassion, what is compassion?
It is an empathy without returns
To everyone, for whatever

Burdens they bear and misfortune
For life can be unfortunate
Love plus meditation for everyone
Is not very complicated

That is why the sages are simple
That it why the Tao begins
And ends with nothing
Silence is the state to receive

Compassion from the universe
If you can learn silence
You can hear the highest phenomenon
Love is not asking for something

In return, the sheer joy of giving
Love is not a desire to possess another
But a joy in serving them
How to serve all creatures with
Compassion, that is a life work.

We are most happen when

A Self-Help poem series

The giver receives
The selfish miser is miserable
It’s an easy thing to observe
Sacrifice for others and notice

If this enables you to think
More about the world
And less about yourself?
There are others less fortunate

Than you, the seed cannot
Know what will happen
Without water and sunlight
To focus on the self is to isolate

Oneself from the energy of life
Life is a relationship with itself
There are no actual boundaries
You create them, by distinction

By not sharing your life with others
Self isolation is one of the problems
Of individualistic societies, we pretend
We are strong, but people aren’t

By nature strong, we are tender
We were made for partnership, family
Clan, community, society, cooperatives
Fraternity, exhibition, theater, lovers

Nurturing others enables the energy
To circulate, like blood or light
Do not live a frozen life
Do not waste your time in selfishness

Or attempting to profit
For when we are alone
We are conditioned to think of scarcity
And when we are together we

Happen to muse about plenitude
So what does that mean?

Preaching to Trees

A Self-Help poem series.

The secret to happiness
Has always been
Simple, the ability to

Let nature take care of nature
That means not living
In the past or future
Naturally, you will

Be an eternal present
That is the purity of experience
Your whole life occurs
In the now, so don’t be

Afraid to experience
Because the more you
Experience, the more mature
You will become naturally

The secret of happiness
Is to know and abide
By one’s nature, not pretending
To be something or someone else

The trees are green
Not for a particular person
It is not that when you look
They become green, they were

Always that way and happy
For the state of a flower is
To prepare to bloom
And the state of a person

Is to prepare to love
What could be more natural?
What could be better
We come into this world

A part of our mother
So of course we are tempted
To find intimacy in another
In a group, in a cause, in
The unity of nature itself.

Last voice of the organics

i

There is a river around
Me of love, a writing of fire
A slab of jade on my back
A testament to the love

Of what we do, not why we do it
It’s like God working through
Us, or a snowstorm in August

ii

Or the circular days finding
A year of extraordinary fantasy
That’s art, and that’s also life
Relationships, mutual influences
The energy behind a book

The process of alphabets
Converting on a brain
Unifying incoherent symbols

iii

A language of creation
How birds and stars can meet
And how creatures evolve
There is a river of sound
It’s the narrative of all stories

Of the very act of story-telling
It’s the inheritance of millions
Of years of effort, to grow

And to understand truly
What it means to be human
And now, it’s all changing.

The moment scatters itself into a poem

The moment scatters itself into a poem

I am full, of unwritten poetry
My life is an experience
Of the lady of secrets
And the labor of art

I craft, I write, I want
To go to the beyond
Through the gift of the gateway

Of intuitive being
Until I become a poem
I am pregnant, with this
Reflection of resurrection
Words dance in my brain

In somersaults and fountains
Of the purest aroma
A vistas of the clearest day

My pen is not a pen, my page
Is not a page, I write for the future
To the future, arriving forever
Through the lens of beauty
I transcend and I perceive

Through until the lady of secrets
Down into the sea of mysteries.

What Scientists forgot to tell you

A star-inspired self-help poem:

What Scientists forgot to tell you

Love is a state of Being
You can enter that place
At anytime, at will
Like going into a blanket

In your mind, or discovering
An ocean in your heart
It’s where we came from
It’s the loving source

So don’t hesitate to try
The excise of goodwill
Your love my friends
Is not outside, not some
Pillow of a person or

Maternal or paternal figure
It is deep within you
The mystics said that
The saints said it too

The prophets hinted at it:
You can never lose it
It comes with you
From life to life, because

Our souls are made of it
Our psychic beings
Shine with it, it is the
Only actual substance

In the universe, so when
You ask for love, remember
For a moment what it is
You are talking about

It is not dependent on
Some other body or external form
Bu tis a choice at each moment
A compulsive unity of everything

That does not think in terms
Of duality, like success and failure
Or other human attributes
Love is a pure state of giving
It is the urge to do good
Stronger in some, purer
In others still, so embrace it.

Reciprocal Simplicity

A Star-inspired poem:

Reciprocal Simplicity

Acceptance is a key
To intimacy with the world
It implies trust
It implies hospitality
It implies helping others
Be who they truly are

That is the real key to
Spiritual relationships
To build rapport with
The core of a person
That part of them that shines

When their eyes glimmer
With faith, hope, positive vibrations
So that person can be more
Powerful, and not down-trodden
Human intimacy is a bridge

To altered states, friendship
Can be the catalyst to change
Acceptance is a freedom
From judgement and competition
Acceptance is to connect

Without inhibition or constraint
But to be together without
Mental labels or cognitive gossip
It takes some practice but
That’s the subtle energy

That is a very real sense of
Well-being that I’d like to experience.

The Mind is your Mirror

A Star-inspired poem:

The conditions of the human mind
Are the mysteries of life
How to focus on the positive?
To avoid poor energy management

So change the situation
By loving life more
Let that be your foundation
The present moment
Begs for your affirmation

Fear of loss, fear of failure
Fear of being hurt, fear of change
These are no longer helpful states
Discont is a form of apathy
Blaming is a form of self-hatred

Self-pity is a form of neglect
Do not succumb to these habits
If you wish to have a pure mind

If you wish to live a good life
The psyche is in your hands
The psyche that is never a victim
But a Beloved observer of your life
It does not judge you if you

Are late to bloom or have problems
Adjusting to the dreams or purpose
For which you were made uniquely

Love the actions you do
Take a loving responsibility
With the freedoms of being human.