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The Journey to the West

Though we journey to the West We pray to the East More or less that's the way Each day begins and ends It’s a tale everyone ...

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Towards A Renascence of Nothing

For us old souls
Tending to flat
Preparing for
The worst of it
Including the sky’s
Eventual collapse
We must learn
To navigate sightlessly
Just like a bat
Through space time
Dimensionless and
Devoid of meaning
Into the stillness  
Of the evening

Pushing our
Ventricles open wide
Neither pinched or pained
Nor by gloom constrained
But held and sustained
In the durable mesh 
Of Indra’s net

For there
Where East meets West
Let our hearts take rest
With worldly knowledge
From all sides blessed


Thursday, June 25, 2015

A Few Questions for William Butler Yeats

Who will arise and go there
Who will go to Innisfree
Not by poetic incantation
But in harsh reality?

Who will plant bean rows
In self-sufficient quantity
Who will hoe all day with hunched back
And pull weeds on bent knee?

Innisfree as fantasy
Is easy to possess
It’s much harder to go there
And in the heart’s deep core
To know of the soil’s duress


Monkey and the Blue Flower

Monkey and blue flower
Depicted together
Riding on the back
Of a giant snail
What could better capture
A romantic poet's quest  
For the Holy Grail














This image comes from a medieval manuscript

Paris, Bibl. Mazarine, Ms. 1581, f. 349v

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Poem for My Father


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February 5th, 2012



It's because of you Dad 
That I feel compelled
To continue concocting 
Plausible explanations
For the absurdities of life
Even though we both know
There will never be enough
To address the substantial
Balance still outstanding

Spending time among men
So indeterminate of fate
Some darling some not
I've learned to find
Behind so many
A would be Hemingway
There stands a similarly
Murky Oedipal plot
And with fathers such as we are
Crystal clear as to intent
But cryptic as to meaning
A glass ever near at hand
Yet utterly silent
As to whatever it is or was
We are fleeing or feeling

Thus I came to possess
But a slender thread of wisdom
About navigating through
The choppy seas of life
By taking good reckoning
Of the prevailing winds 
Before turning back 
To confront the demons
Imaginary though they may be --
Turning back face into the wind
Is the only way to be rid
Of those demons for sure

A Dream Much About Suchness

Of the 3,000 worlds
In each moment of Suchness
There’s enough to fill your head
More than can ever be said
Of the sores and afflictions
That define our condition
Riddling the past
As well as tempting
Us with pleasures
Yet to come

When the curtain
Is drawn and the water’s
Nice and warm and
The attendant smiles
In a comely fashion
You may grope for your cash
Or submit to the bath
With a smile all your own

As befits a fallen state
Now is the moment
To decide between
Arousal and panic
Or else you might choose
To rise from your bed 
Waiting for the light
Of the coming dawn