A Dream About a Mobius Strip

Suddenly the music
Comes back on

A thick rich sound
The chords of a Wilco song

A soundtrack to live by
The feeling comes in waves

At least that's what you said
And I thought I agreed

It kept pulsing all night
Helping me to break through

But half forgotten already
Even before hearing it out

As it transformed itself
Into something entirely new

Me and Not I

Me and Not I

We’re not exactly strangers

As close as we get sometimes

It’s hard to forget or explain

Or completely let go

The best I can get to is No-mind

Which is exactly what

I’ve come to expect

Me and Not I

We’re careful to pay

Each other No-mind

Me and Not I

It’s hard to take sometimes

Almost enough to drive me

Out of my mind

The good with the bad of it

And the worst of it yet

It’s what I’ve come to expect

As one Nen leads to another
And we start rushing up for air

Right after hitting bottom

Make me into something

That no one else

Will recognize

A new zip code and

A new shoe size

Me and Not I

Me and Not I

Between the two of us I'm unsure

Where things stand – Not me and I

Wherever we go

A membrane keeps us apart
We’re always so close
But short of being one

At least not yet
Not Me and I

Hilma af Klint

On a Littoral Plain

Those poems please me most

In which reality’s pleasures unfold

On a literal and symbolic plain

Simultaneously self-reinforcing

And so it may be said of this

Poem of mine as I proceeded

Up the mouth of Weesuck Creek

Making way for the Outcast’s

Port side stern

While up the West Bank
I saw the Endurance

Out of Sag Harbor

Anchored there

And beyond that a

Bright yellow thing

Hauled up alongside

The Skopanich dock

Do I call it Hope?

It seems overpowering

With twin outboards too

Dharma Kayak

A stiff breeze

Over the shoulder

Driving me homeward

Between water and sky

To be advancing

Palindromically

Paddle in hand

Perfectly balanced

Forward and aft

Digging into my ribs

With a core dip of the abs

As the water beads

And dances

Along the blade’s

Curved edge

Making maximal progress

With minimal effort

Only becomes possible

When we are thus  

Inward aligned

With all three elements 
Earth water and sky

Personal Poem

Now day or night
When I walk around
In the lurid humidity
Of Midtown South
I carry five reminders
In my right front pocket -
A stout worn Buddha
Two pieces of Amazonite
A heart shaped stone Marissa gave me
And a shard picked up from near
My father's grave in Putnam Valley -
Not so much to bring good luck
(as no one that I know
was clubbed last night)
But everything I need

Is with me right now

Snug in my pocket

Condensed to

The essentials

Five rocks and

Nothing more

To keep me
True on course

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

This is a personal poem.  But it is also a response of sorts to someone else's personal poem, as you can read here (Personal Poem)  which perhaps makes it both less and more personal.

Meditation 1 - Thinking about Nothing on a summer afternoon

An embarrassment of riches

Everything that competes

For our attention on

A summer’s afternoon

From the crow calling

At the top of my neighbor’s

Shrub next door

To the haze that hangs

Thick among the trees

To the cut hydrangeas

Littering the front lawn

Nothing is never quite

What it seems and then

Even some more