The Chant Goes On

What you love, you become
The dream of being is identity
What you feel, you attract
With the whisper of the cosmos

Always around you nurturing time
What you imagine, you create
In the Tao of sense, there’s only the future
A living universe intersecting

With every part of you, a thousand
Times per second, you are energy
Happiness does not depend on circumstance
It is a gift of perspective

There is no path to happiness
No escape into pleasure
No particular opposite of suffering
The experience is paramount and important

What you love, you will become
So learn to love the highest and truest
Of what you are, let your love encompass
The whole world, so you will not be small
Or live smally for yourself, and be miserable.

Karma Dragons

We all invent a face for ourselves
A life to lead, experiences
To intrinsically alter our
Soul’s DNA, our evolutionary quotient

We lived and died
And were reborn as other people
We all required a narrative
To live in order to get

Where we are going
That which is at the heart of learning?
We get wrinkles on our faces
Our wrinkles have no faces

We are a spirit luminous
Trembling in a garden of flesh
How the trees lean together
And whisper in the night

We should know social bonds
Not simple be, a single
Monotonous intensity of identity
But know, what we experience

Others experience, symmetrically
We all invent a life for ourselves
A path to tread, a body of experiences
The calligraphy of the birds

Or the dire poverty of
A marketplace exploited by others
We were animals with
Radiant hands, and still had

A good land for dreaming
And I still begged for moderation and simplicity
To be tied to time with a light thread.

The Soul Achieves Herself without effort

Gradual is our relationship
with the grace behind nature
another spectral October Fall
how the wizard sun confines

and the flamingo sunsets wave goodbye
the fires ebb, the flowers cease
their sport, the stars wink
at snowflakes on their fall

to carpet a sparkling web
sapphire moments drift by
at dusk in the cities
there is a soft glimmer

in the streets, it is cold outside
as we bow one by one into
our brief solitude, with visions
to guide us for the labours of tomorrow

paralyzed by the savings of gold
or the lack of savings in our bank accounts
the wisdom of life is a brief release
the details we once scrutinized

no longer seem so important after all
to live a good life, means different things
at separate points in our story
and nothing in the end intoxicates

like the God neurochemical
call it what you will, the spirit
lives on after all these subplots
the search for a diviner brand

of metaphysics, philosophy, utopia
until there are no visitors to our soul
but a diviner truth, a more united feeling
gradual is our relationship
with what’s beyond the scope of years.

Photo Courtesy:

1. http://www.deviantart.com/art/Be-on-the-road-with-warmly-thoughts-482560577
2. http://www.deviantart.com/art/Deer-Collaboration-483167431

Brief history of religion

When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
~ Mahatma Gandhi

i would be as ignorant as the future
that forgives and forgets the past
as sublime as the dawn

that has looked down on towns
as the stars fade and the moon
is plucked by the ocean from the sky
I would be as ignorant as this planet

that dreads not but revolves around itself
these countries of profit and civil
unrest, fighting history, quarrels between gods

invented by men who would wield power
the kind of show that leads to a unified death
flame under flame, flower of the heaven-fold
obeying your will to die for a name

obedient to the scripture where my ancestors died
and i lived, because of cowardice and
because I wanted see another sunset, another dawn.

Nuptial Silence-Transparency

My body hears the body of my wife
She is pure spirit where music is real
She is the silence of an idea
That floats, flutters, lands in mind
Nirvana as Samasara, Samsara as Dharma

I draw these letters in to me
Like lost ghosts, left-over dreams
The pollen that blows them into me
I take as my interior flowers
My body feels their fragrance against

My lips and nose, I am their sunlight
Their water below, we are merged
Connected, embracing like a quiet well
The bucket of my vocabulary
Is simple, as a moment with a hummingbird

An exclamation without a nod or a reply
A sweet wind from all compass points
The light and dust when stars have burnt-out
My neurons whisper the poems of the present
Like a tortured river that cannot stop

A floodgate that is always on
A silence that is chiseled by God for God alone
Like an intricate erotic watch of time.

Art courtesy of: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Nuptial-66055316

GREAT FOOLS

I am too lazy to be ambitious
My unconditional surrender too full to act
I let the world take care of itself
I let my fate weave its roads
I can get along with good books
One friend, one meal of rice a day
Why chatter about the news or enlightenment?
We are all deluded in our own ways
With our familiar dull frames of reference
I write instead, poems that are not my poems
These poems are not my poems
This way we can begin to speak
About the poems that touch everybody
The seers wrote poems like putting twigs
Into the fireplace, the fire that keeps all beings warm
It is not important to be famous, but to be comfortable
I am too lazy to be ambitious
I am too free to believe in particulars.

REINCARNATION & MEMORY

I

Forgetfulness is like a song,
So sweet as freedom’s Bell
When I forget my measures
I know I am living well Enough
Forgetfulness is like a Bird
Whose wings are reconciled
To the wind, as I am to my Fate

II

That whispers the saddest lines
And buries itself into Prophecy
Memory unwearyingly leads us
Home, back to the blasted tree
Where I promised the world
Grander things than I could reach!

III

I can remember much forgetfulness
As a fool, I who tried to forget
On the old fringe of silence
I snapped a twig, my heart
So that I might behold an ancient face
Whispering not gloom, but
Shattering possibility, reincarnation.

MY SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE STANDARD

i

You do not just hold my hand
You hold the affections of my Universe
Without one thing all would be useless
“Oneness”, unity, empathy, connection
Call it what you may, it’s here
After a life of being abandoned

ii

It’s by stealth and fire and trials
That we come to realize
We all belong and are carried eternally
Already you see I have escaped
From you, the drama, the mystery

iii

It’s all gone, I’ve come to an understanding
With the world, with existence
I’m determined to befriend everything
In a platonic ideal beyond appearances
That embraces all creeds, cultures, religions
So called separate divisions, all aliens

iv

You do not just hear my voice
You feel my spirit in my language
And that’s all I can ask for
Without this it would be useless
To attempt to communicate shared meaning.

photo Courtesy:

http://www.deviantart.com/art/The-moment-after-43427550

LIKE FLOWERS BELOW THE BLINDED CROWDS

i

The Body is my holy instrument
Therefore I shall not endure to live
At the expense of suffering creatures
I shall not ingest poisons or other animals

ii

I shall be skilful with service & flowers
This world is like foam, to be sure
Ready to be born and to die at every moment
I shall see death and life equally, as if
With the same eyes, loving all who follow
Their inherent natural purpose, these clear paths
Satiated so easily in worldly pleasures

iii

The sleeping Cities consuming & gathering
Wealth, children, time – I know it’s temporary
I care not for the faults of others that are necessary
Nor for those who would conquer the world

iv

Like Flowers we must give our own colors
As many kinds of garlands, our scents travel
Down to the River, with the good Wind
The Soul is my holy seat of memory
Therefore I shall serve beauty and suffering creatures
The blind machine of the crowd cares enough for itself.

DISTANCES OF PLEASURE

i

I have been distracting myself
In an Ocean of pleasures
Grasping purpose in the world

ii

I found the clinging and the having
Unpleasant, empty, forgetful of meditation
With my temporary pleasures
There was a burden of grief
Imprisonment, dissatisfaction and loneliness
An animal in a self-chosen cage

iii

In my relative attachment to the world
I somehow missed the sip of divinity
And with my greed, there came a fear
Of losing, failure, abandonment from security

iv

I have forgotten how to live without lust
I go from one craving to the next
As if living a simulation, envious
Of the remembrance of virtuous living.

Photo Courtesy: http://www.deviantart.com/art/11-11-455255289

Karma Arrives Like a Smile of God

Our acts are little buds Of prayer, aspirations at times Without dedication Our faith is a slow runner On time’s thin Dance of God Our deeds are bound Arriving shockingly late The karma is our satisfaction-distribution Of portions of Eternity …

“Morning” Means Living Without Expectation

Delayed, till the rest of my life –
My goodness cannot wait
To be spent on the bliss

Of the slow pace of a simple life
Who knows this but
A surrendered face, trusting

The Universe with all that matters
In this imperial route of non-attachment
Like a Buddhist I will strive

To give without asking in return
I have no native town, no home-people
I am but a soul in a form on Earth

A Wonderful rotation of artistic seasons
My “last poems” ended where the silver perished
On my tongue that spoke less and less

The flute of an Autumn morning
It’s all I have to bring today
Delayed, till the rest of my life –

My heart beside the field of all hearts
I throw myself into the river
The river that forgets everything.

Photo Courtesy: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Long-Live-Independence-I-413323382

The Bamboo Gathering Sutra

I just close my eyes –
And I can see souls
That dwell above white stone

Waiting, with far-off voices
Calling the future
While candle wax burns

Off of my ignorance
A shower of white snow
That powdery wonder

Like sand-grain of infinity
I bathe in its glow
On a balcony looking out

Into nowhere, I feel the deep peace
Of years clocked only on a journey
Between star and star

I just close my eyes –
And I can remember lifetimes
The senile elements of realities

So brief, I watch them as the pretty
Wail of mandolins, the months
When we were young felt longer

I wait for the jasmine-gardened night
For the fragrance of tomorrow
The dawn where voices join

Like mouths that tremble under waterfalls
And dreams that float like Indian perfume.

Photo Courtesy: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Bamboo-Forest-Kyoto-170876421

to the sweet countrymen of subjectivity

I’ve renounced life for art
as I once renounced love
for spirit, expecting a presence
of universal love to redeem me

art has no rewards but Just Sunrise
seeing beauty in atoms
with a larger function of gratitude

I’ve renounced expectation
for freedom, finding music in silence
friendship in history, truth in words

that seemed as common as
bulbs of silver lit up in evening
scantily dressed with another day’s death

I’ve renounced faith for hope
a scarlet experiment of hunting
the future instead of living in the past

this is my letter to the world
the simple news that is never old
I’ve renounced pleasure for a life-goal

since tender majesty cannot be too selfish
and long-term pleasures carry a destiny
of spirit, working for a presence
of universal love that exists without me.

Photo Courtesy: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Golden-Gate-unchained-404119060

I Admonish Thee

Hope is the circumference of life
Faith is the circle of the fall
Creation the mighty exponent of
Oxygen and water, blood and time

History notes love is posterior
To fate, that seal of light
That spreads what we were
And mixes it with the cycles
*
That never stop, only recede to start again
Revelation cannot end with
Going blind, we learn to listen
Silence is the jewel of posterity

The future, the brimming Deity in our eyes
Perhaps we ask too large a place
No less to explore the furthest skies
Hope remains the circumference
*
Faith ends all beliefs of smaller bundles
Creation the happening where we exist
Open to all accidents of loss
Yes, oxygen, water, blood, time
These too will be taken away.

Photo Courtesy: http://www.deviantart.com/art/autumn-sun-402106762

Buddhist Untitled Engima

Look, look, look – far ends to tired days
That all days were tiring and half-endured
I recommend this abstinence from pain

A praise of purity, in expressions
Of the most lucid meditation
Look, look, look – at the flavor

Of all the Beloved guests, which banquet
With spice & wine, through time
Till my small Library of experience

Is full, full, full – far ends to newer days
That required a wilderness of eyes
And holidays of the happy heart

To stay awake and keep on living
Though at times there were no kinsmen dear
To satisfy the spirit, or obtain peace

I recommend this abstinence from attachment
A praise of purity, in expression
Of the most transparent meditation

Done with all compasses of hope and art
When thinking is shed for rapture & silence.

Photo Courtesy: http://www.deviantart.com/art/The-magic-ballet-402542745

Death IV

From the monarchy of the past
We are chilled for her coming
Death, that spark of our reincarnation

Who sums up our karma in her Will
Beloved are the changes of our fates
That destiny spills with such great beginnings

Our ill health begets for what she came
That many times our body might rise again
For the supersession of breath
*
And a hundred alternate futures
Our mind confronts the murderous men
Who orchestrate wars in her gaze

Death, how she knew me to the bones
Man created this, for his own profit
As women enjoyed giving life in all that they did

But we live on an Earth that serves
The profit of a few, so death offers them
No final freedom either, only the power of knowledge

The fleeting pleasure of a few kingly years
From our station of birth we are built
To confront the meaning of our brief life
In the shinning darkness of a final abyss.

Photo Courtesy: http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Irene-377267462

Your Olden Conscience Melted in my Arms

May the God in you
Forgive herself, like gentle rain
Across the many forgotten memories
We choose not the thresholds
Of our dearest lessons, only

The afterwards of shared stories
Dialogues with our soul
They ripple in our conversations
Reminding me that we are so fragile
All in characteristic vulnerability

Succumbs to the vision of wholeness
That would have been a life with you near
My friend, you opened up my soul like a wild flower
And I am filled with incredible gratitude
That some force of the world

Brought you near again
May the Goddess in you
Forgive himself, like quiet sunshine

My future is my past, and you challenged
Me to be myself in an entirely new way
I love you, thank you, forgive me, I’m sorry.

Photography Credits: http://browse.deviantart.com/art/When-Summer-Took-Over-375107084