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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 ...

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

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



Monday, July 27, 2015

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



Sunday, July 26, 2015

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








Tuesday, July 21, 2015

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.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

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