If you would seek wisdom,
the walls of your prison
must be made a prism.
To purify vision,
let light begin creeping
like mice, softly sneaking,
almost still half sleeping –
if wisdom you’re seeking.
03 MAY 2017
Oh wisdom seeking mendicant travelers,
your baggage and burdens are troubling handicaps;
they will not help you on your journey.
Abandon this garbage by the roadside.
If you would find some unforeseen adventure,
let drop your jaded world-weary illusions;
you have no need of those old crutches.
Use your own power to find the pathway.
Look inward, pilgrim: investigate carefully
what you have right now. Nothing is infinite
that has an ending, a start or finish;
if you see its edges, it’s not the source.
No dusty volume filling up shelving space
can provide answers; nor can just believing
in teachers, prophets, soldiers or saints.
The source of energy does not costume.
It is not waiting, patiently camouflaged
while you are wasting excuses and lifetimes.
It does its business, whether you are
singing in harmony or out of tune.
11 AUG 2006
Take heart, ye wayworn pilgrims
on the road to finding out,
who’ve braved the elements of fear,
delusion, pride and doubt,
and found on your long journey
not a sole epiphany
except that destinations often
are illusory.
Take heart, ye lovesick paramours
who thirst for the divine,
whose knees are raw from crawling
through the realm of Proserpine;
what horrors in the realm of Death
you’ve suffered for your lust
are merely shadows, palimpsest
that will crumble to dust.
Take heart, ye hopeless wanderers
who think there is no trail
and have forsaken long ago
some great quest for the Grail.
The cup is in your hands already;
Drink, and have your fill.
If you can’t find it there by now,
you likely never will.
10 May 2005
For forty years I’ve sought some kind of truth
and come up empty-handed, more or less.
What dreams I held like treasures in my youth
have lost their gleam; my hands, their tenderness.
The journey has not gone as I had planned,
nor have the self-prescribed instructions been much good.
The waters beyond my small plot of land
remain uncharted depths, and what sparse food
I gleaned from these great oceans has become
like horded manna, fit for only flies;
my touch has turned rare jewels to lumps of coal.
My tongue once loose with song has been struck dumb,
anesthetized by years of speaking lies.
Now, even my illusions cannot hold.
Along the rocky shore, I peer in vain
out in the mist that crowds the twilight shore
with eyes now worn and weak, their muscle strained
from nights in candlelight. There is no more
soft music in the wind that brings delight,
nor quiet silence where I find some peace.
Each moment brings no end, just fruitless fight;
and sleep, once fitful, brings me no release.
At midnight, when the world is calm and still
and secrets are exchanged between the veils,
I stand offstage, behind the curtain’s wall
and where the footlight shadows barely spill,
just listening to others’ wondrous tales,
and realize I’ve found nothing at all.
27 JAN 2005
It’s so hard to focus on the subtleties of life
Often times the fountain pen is like a carving knife
On clandestine maneuvers in the dark soul of the night
Without anesthesia or a sense of wrong and right
Once I thought to change the world without making it worse
Living in it seemed a drama that was unrehearsed
It lacked improvisation and was thrown together fast
Product of a culture that was certain not to last
Each unguided moment is a ruby in the dust
You try not to pick it up, but realize you must
Put it in a setting that you hope will resist rust
And watch the vultures settle on it, leaving you the crust
Watch a while and listen, there are voices on the wind
Some may whisper battle cries, and others just pretend
Once in many lifetimes can you recognize a friend
Sacrificed to sibyls speaking that they knew you when
12 SEP 2003
