Poems for common men
Who reside far and wide
Written to give hope
And maintain mortal pride.
In the absurdity of life
That is ... and is not
What makes sense 'here'
Isn't always allot.
The path these words follow
Easily laid out and readily given
Seeks in the finite
And not what is eternally hidden.
Some will find answers
And others, not
Just live the moment
Soon enough, all men turn to rot.
What will be ‘left,’ truly,
is all there is
Reading slowly, absorb, taking your
time
Then, in most every way, you'll
hopefully enjoy
This momentary rhyme.
There are
colored leaves
each their own
For me to cherish
And to write a poem.
"The Darkness Through the Light”
(Tao)
I can see darkness
Through the light
Ever so clearly they both reside
On this written line
Day is coveted by night.
One is where I am
The other where I am not
'Now'
and 'then'
Both are within me
Until they come to an end.
“Out of the Body”
(Tantra)
Out of the body
Away from my mind
I am able to navigate
What is ... to be mine.What was
Does not matter
For it is finished and done
Mortal man ... a living pun.“What Is It”
(Life in the Western World)What it is with those people who bore and tire me
I alienate ... as they cease to edge my life forward.
I seek to be with men to whom I am attracted
Intellectually ... physically ... emotionally
And when one ... or mostly more, does not offer this
I adamantly move on, without them.Friendship needs to be an invigorating situation
Where stimulation ... give and take
And equality of the minds ... remains on an even keel.
If that should change ... when the process of challenge and living life
Is evidently deceased in one
So is the relationship ... for them, I care not to become.Life is too short to spend time with men whose days are boringly routine
With whom I know what will be said, and what will be done.
Living needs be surprise ... and positive action
An excitement about being 'here'
A simple, subconscious but visible acknowledgement of existence
Is the whole of the attraction.
Notes to Myself:
The terminology "a mighty celebrant of pleasure."
Almost all the great artists of Goya's time were fascinated by madness, that porthole into unplumbed depths of character and motive. Goya was in some ways the greatest of all delineators of madness, because he was unrivaled in his ability to locate it among the common presence's of human life, to see it as a natural part of man's condition, not as an intrusion of the divine or the demonic from above or below. Madness does not come from outside into a stable and virtuous normality. There is no perfect stability in the human condition, only the approximations of it, sometimes fragile because created by culture. Part of his creed, indeed the very core of his nature as an artist was Terence's "Nihil humanum a me alienum puto," "I think nothing human alien to me.”
These thoughts from The New Yorker, September 2003, in an article on Goya.
"Life and Death: In Time"
(Life in the Western World)
I lie in bed
The sun well up,
on the horizon.
I try to move,
but thoughts of what lay ahead
Have me
paralyzed, upright, and immobile.
This day … what
should I do,
There is so much
… to chose from
But the choice,
like a stone weight
Holds me down …
crumpled … at a complete stop.
How I proceed …
is to move forward at a constant, steady pace
Like Mother
Earth … forever held in time
A rock in
constant orbit … traveling outward
Advancing … even
though remaining steadfast in place.
“That Which
You Brought”
(Life in the
Western World)
You
return to me ... often
But why, at this moment
I do not know,
Except, you are ingrained
In my memory
For what you brought into my life.
“Every Moment”
(Tantra – That I
Have Breath)
I cannot allow
A moment of frustration
To take hold
And weigh me down.
Life is to be like air
Uplifting
Every moment, every moment
I take it within me.
"Now I"
(Tantra)
The times when you wait
For something greater
Are no greater
Than the moment
Of 'now.'
“Now II”
(Tantra)
I do
What the moment brings
For I am nothing else
Except this that I am
Now.
“Hope”
(Life in the
Western World)
Hope is the essential ingredient to
living,
That we may be happy
Having a long, healthy 'run'
We can die in peace.
Hope is what all men need carry with
them
For a better, new day
A life filled with good deeds
Its end being as welcome as the
morning sun.
"Acquaintances”
(Life in the Western World)
I am bored by
them
Almost all
They bringing to
my table leftovers
Food I've often
swallowed before.
Being a man ...
with an appetite
I seek of what
has not yet been tasted
He who I am now
Needs advance
beyond who I was.
“Not Letting Go”
(Life in the Western World)
I cannot let go
Of what I
continually seek
Like concrete,
re-enforced with steel
Solid is my
search
Of what is
living
'Now,'
at this moment
I gather my
strength
To reach its
peek.
“Patterns”
(Tantra – Under Construction)
In the patterns
of the earth
I find there is
an order.
With the pattern
of the stars,
There is a
disorder
Both are the
patterns of life
Etched on my
shoulder.
All is before me
Yet passing by
The past into
the future
Becomes the
present
In which I see
it all
And know
nothing.
Here
There
Beyond
Within
All is
As it should be.
No rhyme
No reason
What is
Unfolding
Is truly folded
Into a loose
knot.
“The Beauty Of
This Day”
(Zen)
The beauty of this day
No man may take away
It remains mine, forever
Within me it will stay.
“Walk On”
(Tantra)
I open my eyes
Into the night
To give me hope
I await morning's light.
This is my reason
This is the rhyme
This is 'now'
For all remaining time
There is no more
As has been foretold
Man's a fool if he thinks
Something else is in the hold.
Life's but 'here'
And then it’s gone
Death but a change in place
He should have absolutely no fear.
To be what you are
Understand there's plenty in the
mortal store
Live the moment
Then walk on out the door.
"I Know, I
Know"
(Tantra)
In this body
I reside
Of which I
Take great pride.
It's my home
Now and forever
I am not fooled
There's some eternal tether.
Though it changes
With the season
It's all I've got
Common sense makes good reason.
I give it care
And succor with self-love
Mine the only vessel
For my travel both below and above.
Dust to dust
Ash to ash
I have come, and I will go,
Sounds all too simple, I know, I
know.
“Reach For The
Stars”
(Tao)
Reach for the stars
They are close by
Don't think you can't,
They reside permanently in a man’s
eye.
“Time Passes”
(Tao)
Time passes
And with it, change
Eventually, every sunrise finds that
horizon
Where passage ceases
And I become
What I always was
Meant to be
For all eternity
Life into death
Is wholly me.
“Immortality on a Single Line”
(Tantra – Under Construction)
I do hope
As I mature … in age
This change does not become a major
topic
Of which I am … encumbered.
I need to willing accept the changes
with time’s passage
Always moving along in a positive
state
What was once, can surely be again
If only here … in these silly
rhymes.
“Childhood
Memories”
(Life
in the Western World)
Childhood memories
Come flooding back
Setting my growth
Quite off track.
Where I am going
What I want to be
With these blinders,
I cannot clearly see
I need get away from what was then
The weight of its pain
I hope to lose,
By the strong will of this pen.
“Ever So
Grateful”
(Life in the Western World)
What I’ve missed
In life
Oh,
what a list!
What I’ve had
I should give thanks
My cup runneth over
I am ever so glad.
“Life
Unfolding”
(Life
in the Western World)
A life unfolding
Is a complete story
Not yet told.
Each new line,
Eventually brings a page
Bright and bold.
In it is a tale
Each sentence replete, until the
last
Records the author’s final heart
beat.
I continue writing
Every moment there is light
Often carried well into the night.
There’s no end to my bleating
Both ignoble and glorious
One just needs keep on reading
Until the last word ‘here’
States ‘I am through!’
Clearly, there is no fear.
“At the Moment of Choice”
(Tantra – Under Construction)
I have this life.
It is mine.
I need share it with no one
Except those whom I chose
To partake of what I am
Everyone else
I can willing lose.
Where I am
At this point in my life
Is not where I will be tomorrow
Nor, where I was yesterday.
Rather, I am ...
Where I am right now.
When I both entered this life
And will exit
Is nothing more, nothing less
Than what this very moment in
time holds
And, if I am so fortunate to truly
understand this
The thought becomes the only story
that needs be told.
“Easing Out of Life”
(Tantra)
In this that is, being this that is
not
Becoming this that …
What more is there
Than dark … into light,
Night … into day,
The sun rising … and setting
Only to rise again.
All is at once ‘here’
And at the same time gone.
Over and over
In what is foretold
By what is known
And what's yet to be told.
There is nothing else
Unless times mystery
Ever does an unfold.
What makes a man
Is to stand before his Creator
Knowing … this that I am
Is this that you are.
We are equals.
By His example
I take what is given, and multiply,
Giving back to ‘Him’
While singing
Hallelujah.
To ‘He’ who is
And ‘he’ who is not,
One and one make one.
I praise them both
In Hallelujah.
“If I Live”
(Life in the Western World)
If I only live
Through this moment
What do I have
Beyond it?
If I live
Into the next,
I still have
All there ever is.
“This Body”
(Life in the
Western World)
My body
Is not what it once was
But the memory lingers
In youthful flesh on old bones
Bringing back the remembrances
In very different tones.
Passing days ... each take a toll
Like the cutting of a tree, which
once stood tall
Great heights achieved, brought to
the ground.
In mortal hands are mortal deeds
done, then undone
For each of us, what surrounds
Inevitably becomes a barren cemetery
stall.
Notes to Myself:
James Thurbor: "I live in the hopes that the adventure of death is something equal to the adventure of life which is pretty colorful and interesting even if hard. It would seem strange to me if God made such a complicated people and then had no more to offer than blankness at the end."
“Walk a Straight Line”
(Tantra)
I walk a straight line
Not deviating
Too far to the right
Or the left
Seeking only to move
In a forward direction.
Where the path ends … somewhere
beyond
Be it far, over the horizon
Or just ahead
It makes no difference
Surely, as I advance
To follow is to be 'led.'
“Never Able to ‘See’”
(Life in the Western World)
When I’m older
And life’s about through
I’ll still be the young man
I once knew.
It’s just that my time ‘here’
Will be close to due.
On this day I will remember what’s
gone by
A life I once thought
Would last and last, like pie in the
sky.
What a fool we mortals be
On the journey a man takes
Through human mortality.